Democrats: Trump’s $12 Billion Farm Bailout And Failed Economic Agenda

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Senate Minority Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor on Monday.

Schumer was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:

“Today, Donald Trump is announcing a $12 billion bailout for farmers who have been punished by his trade war and his tariffs.

Let’s be very clear: the reason farmers need relief at all is largely because Donald Trump betrayed them and decimated their businesses with his disastrous tariffs. Now, Donald Trump is patting himself on the back, acting like a hero to farmers while using taxpayer dollars to clean up the mess he created. It’s textbook Donald Trump incompetence.

I want to make three very important points about this announcement. First, as is so often the case with Donald Trump, we have no idea whether the farmers who actually need help will ever see this $12 billion. He always makes big promises that don’t deliver. He regularly announces that relief is coming with all due haste—and somehow, time and time again, the money never reaches the people who need it most. So, if I were a farmer, I wouldn’t count on this money—it’s probably more of Donald Trump’s big talk without being delivered. That’s what has happened over and over again.

Second, a one-time payment for farmers is cold comfort for all the headache and anxiety and losses they’ve endured because of Donald Trump’s trade war. Farmers do not want a handout, ask them. They want markets. But Donald Trump’s policies have killed the markets our farmers rely on to make a living. This is especially true for soybean farmers. China went from buying more than $12 billion in American soybeans last year to buying virtually nothing by the middle of this year. That Chinese need for soybeans didn’t disappear—contracts went to other countries, like Argentina, which Trump then bailed out at U.S. farmers’ expense. And producers in those countries, Argentina and Brazil, have now locked in new, long-term deals that will shut American farmers out for years and which a one-time check can’t alleviate.

A one-time check isn’t a solution. It’s a band-aid over a gunshot wound. And again, ask our farmers. They want long-term contracts. Unfortunately, they’re not going to get them because when we cut off China, China went to Brazil and Argentina. And those soybean [farmers] said, yeah we’ll give you soybeans, but not for a year but rather three years, four years, five years.

Finally, the American people are being punished twice for Donald Trump’s costly tariffs. Families have seen the cost of beef, produce, and other groceries skyrocket over the course of this year because of the tariffs. And now, they’re being told their taxpayer dollars must be used to clean up the mess that Donald Trump and his tariffs created. First, he tells consumers they have to pay more for the tariffs, and then the taxpayers have to pay more because the farmers are in such trouble because of what Donald Trump did.

Donald Trump’s announcement today is hardly a triumph. It’s an admission of failure— failure to help farmers, failure to rein in China like he promised he would, and failure to lower costs”

The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.