Trump is no friend of farmers

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I come from a long line of farmers. I am a journalist, but I also am a farmer. My husband and I operated a dairy farm for 30 years here in central Minnesota. I averaged six hours a day, seven days a week in the barns feeding calves, cleaning pens, washing up the milk house and milking parlor after milking twice a day, and many times helped my husband deliver a calf at 2 a.m.

We downsized to raising steers several years ago, and so my husband has decreased his crop acreage to correspond to the lower feed needs of steers compared to dairy cows. But we are still farmers.

I grew up with parents who were farmers and who also received a daily newspaper and weekly papers and magazines. The radio was on all day long in the house and the barn; my parents kept up with the news even as they milked cows and cleaned barns. They were informed and they never missed voting in an election. They were staunchly Democrat, in line with the mantra of Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, although I suspect a part of their Democratic fervor came from their admiration of President Franklin Roosevelt, who not only got the country out of the Great Depression but repealed Prohibition — two feats that elevated him to near-sainthood in their eyes.

My father used to say farmers had nothing in common with Republicans, who he said represented old money and despised immigrants, and much more in common with Democrats, the party of the working man. He would truly be at his wits’ end these days pondering how so many farmers are worshiping the guy with the big money who in his first term almost toppled agriculture.

We as farmers were willing to give Trump a chance the first term as he was then an unknown quantity in the presidential business. But the trade wars and the tariffs showed us here was a president with a reckless disregard for farmers and their markets and the economy in general.

We sell most of our soybeans and some corn, and we know China is a big buyer of these commodities. During Trump’s first term, he slapped tariffs on our main trading partners — China, Canada, Mexico and countries in the European Union — so these countries imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farm products sold to them. With the markets taking a major hit, Trump then sent over $60 billion in stimulus checks to help farmers through a tough time. The move ate up almost all the revenue he had gained through the tariffs, but bought him peace for a while among farmers.

But the long-term damage was done. Foreign markets of American crops began looking for other sources of these commodities and some never came back.

Imagine our dismay at Trump’s plans to again put tariffs on all products imported from these countries. We import many components for machinery and technology as well as whole vehicles from Canada and Mexico, many food items from Mexico and pharmaceuticals from Canada. Let’s not forget clothing; nearly all our clothing is imported, including some pricey farm boots my husband recently bought with the box clearly proclaiming “Made in China.” They will really get expensive with a 60% tariff added to their $163.99 price.

It’s bad enough to create a trade war when many farmers are struggling to make ends meet, but Trump wants to further burden agriculture by deporting a good share of its workforce. He wants to deport all undocumented immigrants, which according to most estimates is anywhere from one-sixth to one-quarter of all farm workers. They also make up a good part of the workforce in related food industries such as meatpacking.

Never mind that most undocumented workers contribute to the health of the U.S. economy through purchases from their paychecks. Never mind that there’s not any more criminal element among them than the general public. After all, it’s hard to have a lot of free time for crime and mayhem with those 12-hour days, six days a week on the farm or at the meatpacking plant.

Deporting up to one-quarter of farmers’ workers is only going to raise operating costs and lower their output, which will in turn decrease their profits and any international edge they may have. Employers already go to Mexico and Central America to recruit workers because they can’t find Americans to do these jobs. It’s unlikely they’re going to find locals looking for jobs milking cows or cutting up cattle in a meatpacking plant.

Decreased output is not only going to wreak havoc with commodity sales to overseas markets, but will also raise prices in grocery stores. Now remember that a big part of Trump’s platform was slashing grocery prices and making life in the U.S. affordable again.

Here’s what Trump proclaimed at rally after rally in the past year: He will end inflation. He will launch the most extraordinary economic boom the world has ever seen. Vote for him and he will deliver rising wages and a colossal surge of jobs, wealth and opportunity for every American.

But by his Nov. 25 interview with Time magazine as their person of the year, he already said, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

Yet there are farmers like the one quoted in a December article in the Guardian entitled “Trump’s policies should be turning off farmers — why did so many vote for him?” This dairy farmer said he just didn’t believe Trump would go through with deporting people willing to work on a farm. It’s going to be interesting how a farmer like him with 1,600 dairy cows is going to get them all milked and fed, deliver all those calves and meet the strict requirements of the milk inspector with about one-quarter of his workforce gone.

It’s also hard to believe farmers of all people would support a thrice-married New Yorker who has lived most of his life in a Fifth Avenue penthouse who focuses on attacking “elites” (seems to me he is one) and knows nothing about farming. But Trump won by about a 3-1 margin in rural areas. The experts say it’s because people in small towns and on farms feel left out and alienated by the changes happening in this country and Trump taps into this division.

But even if I was obsessed with transgender people in the bathrooms and too many people of too many colors coming into this country, I still would say supporting Trump as a friend of agriculture is about as self-destructive as it gets.

Lois Thielen is a central Minnesota journalist, a longtime editorial columnist for the St. Cloud Times and the author of six local history books. She and her husband farm near Grey Eagle, Minn.