Will Trump heed the call of US farmers to reduce trade deficits?
The US farming sector is caught in the crossfire of an emerging trade war between the world's top two economies. As US President Donald Trump considers increasing farm subsidies to compensate farmers for the expected decline in their exports and incomes once the US imposes the proposed tariffs on Chinese imports, representatives of the prime agricultural states and lobbying groups declared they prefer "trade to aid".
On April 5, Trump proposed punitive tariffs on $100 billion worth of Chinese imports, in addition to the proposed tariff on $50 billion of Chinese goods two days earlier. In response, China announced 25 percent tariffs on imports of US airplanes, automobiles, and soybean, sorghum and other agricultural products.
Even before China's announcement, US farm income had been "trending downward over an eight-year period", as Trump put it last Monday. And US Senator Pat Roberts told PBS NewsHour on Thursday: "Mother Nature hasn't been very good to us either."
