美国农民很生气: "We Don't Want Handouts"

Bloomberg reports that farmers across the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration's pledge to provide $12 billion in assistance to farms impacted by the ongoing trade war. 

Neal Bredehoeft, a corn and soybean farmer in Missouri, summed up the current sentiment across the Midwest. In interview after interview, farmers delivered essentially the same response to President Donald Trump’s pledge yesterday to provide $12 billion in assistance: It’s nice to know you’re thinking about us, Mr. President, but what we want is a quick return to free trade. It’s “better to get our income from the marketplace than from the government,” Bredehoeft said. -Bloomberg

We assume this means farmers, or at least Neal and whoever else Bloomberg is talking about, will promptly refuse their portion of up to $20 billion per year in federal agriculture subsidies.

The planned assistance will be a mix of direct payments to farmers, purchases of various commodities for food-aid programs, and "the stepped up promotion of new export markets," 

According to Bloomberg, however, "The package has offended the sensibilities of many farmers who supported both Trump and a party that historically champions small government and free trade" 

Agriculture is the third-biggest U.S. export industry. American farmers ship about one-third of their output abroad, generating an estimated $21 billion trade surplus this year, though that’s now under threat after China imposed tariffs on U.S. soybeans and other farm products.

“We want access to markets,” Stan Nelson, a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer in Middletown, Iowa, said by phone as he was en route to check in on his combine at the local tractor dealer in preparation for the fall harvest. “We don’t want government payments, but we do appreciate President Trump recognizing the concern out in the country.” -Bloomberg

“We would prefer trade not aid,” said Dave Struthers, a soy farmer who also raises 6,000 hogs a year in Collins, Iowa. “We’d like to see things figured out on these trade issues.”

The government’s proposed package is like a Band-Aid that “slows bleeding -- it doesn’t heal the wound,” said Struthers, a Trump supporter. “It’s a temporary fix. That’s all any government influx of money would be. It is better than nothing.