Trump may move to help farmers
Republicans field complaints about trade-war tariffs
Lawmakers now considering a package of fresh bailout funds to quell a rebellion in agricultural states.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday rushed to placate furious farmers and Senate Republicans about his escalating trade war with China, with lawmakers now considering a package of fresh bailout funds to quell a rebellion in agricultural states.
The uproar came as farmers, lawmakers, business executives, and global investors are looking to Trump for clues on how far he intends to take the trade showdown with China. On Monday, Trump suggested the standoff could last years and lead to structural changes in the global economy.
On Tuesday, Trump offered conflicting forecasts, musing that a deal could come next month but also predicting a furious economic battle with Beijing.
In one Twitter post, he said he would sign off on a deal “when the time was right,” but in another post he called for using the U.S. Federal Reserve to thwart China’s economic agenda.
“In any event, China wants a deal!” Trump wrote.
The mounting concern from farmers and business groups showed signs of bleeding into the 2020 presidential campaign. Trump has attacked former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic contender for the nomination, and alleged that Democrats didn’t act forcefully enough to counter China in past decades. But Biden on Monday told the radio station WMUR that Trump was creating collateral damage with his blunt trade agenda, which has relied on costly tariffs that U.S. companies must pay to bring in Chinese products.
“The American worker is getting killed by this,” Biden said. “The American farmers are getting killed.”
In a sign of the concern gripping lawmakers, some GOP leaders are looking at a way to amend an unrelated disaster-relief package to free up billions of dollars in rescue money for U.S. farmers. Trump has alleged for years that China rips off U.S. businesses and consumers by stealing intellectual property and rigs its currency to flood the U.S. with cheap imports. He has also complained that the U.S. imports $500 billion more in Chinese goods than it exports to Beijing, an imbalance he says is unfair.
To force the Chinese government to change its behavior, he has imposed steep tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods and threatened to extend these import penalties to more than $300 billion in additional products.
China has responded in two ways, both by trying to negotiate with him to stop the tariffs and by imposing import penalties on U.S. exports such as soybeans and other items.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday were frenetically trying to deal with complaints from farm groups.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., on Tuesday was asked by a reporter about the level of patience among farmers with the trade standoff and he held his thumb and index finger an inch apart.
Sen. John Cornyn, RTexas, said the White House’s approach to helping farmers so far was “inadequate” and that more needed to be done, and soon.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said he planned to write a letter to Trump to explain the concerns of farmers because he felt the argument he had repeatedly made to the president in person was not registering.
“I’m not sure if you talk to him face to face he hears everything you say,” said Grassley, who has emerged as one of Trump’s chief critics on the administration’s trade approach in recent weeks.
Trump last year directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spend $12 billion on programs to help U.S. farmers impacted by the trade war, and he has suggested he will send another $15 billion to farmers this year. But lawmakers and farm groups are confused as to how this would work, and Trump on Monday said the plan was still being “devised.”
Soybean farmers and pork producers received much of the focus last year, but a widening range of farmers and fishermen have complained they are being affected. Lawmakers are now trying to decide whether they can find ways to help cherry producers, corn growers, lobstermen, and others.
Farm groups are among the most politically powerful in the United States, particularly in the Senate, where they have close ties to Democrats and Republicans. Trump has appeared unmoved by many of the business groups who have complained about his trade approach, but he has frequently promised to appease farmers.
This is a reflection of their influence in Republican politics, but also their access to key lawmakers including Grassley, Cornyn, Roberts, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“The question of how this would be done, whether it would apply to wheat and corn and other crops and not just soybeans, is going to be a question that’s going to have to be answered,” Thune said.