America’s Farmers Don’t Want More Aid – We Want Trade!

Svako jutro kad sam se u mom traktoru, I turn on the radio and hope to hear a breaking-news report on how the United States and China have struck a deal and ended a trade war that’s causing pain on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Ponekad su najnoviji razvoj obećavajući. Other times, podižu nove brige. Jedina konstanta je više neizvjesnosti.

Prvo gOOD vijesti: LaST petak, predsjednik Trump agreed to lift the 232 tarife za čelik i aluminij na Kanade i Meksika, utirući put za ratifikaciju USMCA, nasljednik NAFTA.

Međutim, predsjednik Adut also raised tariffs do 25 posto na $200 billion in Chinese products. Tje kineski immediately uzvratio s tarifama do 25 posto u odnosu na $60 milijarde u U.S. proizvodi.

So the trade war continues.

Farmers like me are already odmotavanje iz tenkaju commodity prices. Cijene soje su tako nisko da our costs will exceed our revenues. We’ll lose money on one of our major crops.

Predsjednik Trump je predložio ublažiti udarac s novom krugu savezne potpore za poljoprivrednike. The administration oslobođen plans for a trade mitigation program that will spend more than $16 billion to purchase goods that in normal circumstances we might have sold to China.

predsjednik Trump has supported policies that have pomogao poljoprivrednici and businesses across the nation, od tax relief to regulatory reform. Yet this latest prijedlog, even as it’s offecrvena s najboljim namjerama and will definitivno ublažiti some of the current damage, won’t do much to advance our long-term interests.

We don’t want more aid. Želimo viÅ¡e trgovina. We want stable markets for our crops. I personally believe our president, kao poslovni, understands this. He believes it needs to be fair and free. I am hopeful to će biti njegov krajnji cilj.

Nema veze koji industrija we are talking about, poslovni lideri tražiti markets to sustain tnasljednik poslovne. This is true for farmers as kao i for widget makers. Mi cilj to provide good products, da ih prodaju po vrlo povoljnim cijenama, i izgraditi stabilan i trajan odnos s kupcima.

Sometimes we face poteÅ¡koće i moraju se prilagoditi, naravno. u uzgoju, naÅ¡a najveća varijabla je vrijeme. Ove godine, na primjer, kul proljeće je odgoÄ‘en naÅ¡u sadnju. We’re lagging behind where mi’d like to be.

To je obična problema. It’s also out of our control: Mi can’t change Å¡to majka priroda nam daje.

Trgovinski rat s Kinom, meÄ‘utim, je potpuno ljudskog podrijetla problema. Perhaps it’s worth fighting. A lot of blame can be laid at China’s feet. Kinezi su poznati po svojoj kraÄ‘e intelektualnog vlasniÅ¡tva and many experts accuse them of currency manipulation. They’ve also raised unfounded concerns about neki agricultural technologies, poput biotehnologije, to drive down prices. And apparently, bili smo blizu dogovora kada je Kina odbila prijaÅ¡njih obveza.

U nekom trenutku, meÄ‘utim, we must come to terms—or svi mi will pay dearly. Aa poljoprivrednici, we’re already sitting on nearly a billion bushels of soybeans, jer cijene su toliko niske. Ako vrijeme ostaje ohladi i mokro i snage dodatne sadnje kaÅ¡njenja, neki poljoprivrednici ne može odlučivati ​​na biljke uopće. Letting fields lie idle and accepting crop-insurance compensation may make better business sense than pouring labor and resources into a crop that we can’t sell at even a small profit.

Kongres može učiniti svoj dio posla, kao i. It can pass USMCA—the renegotiated trade deal with Canada and Mexico, our two most important trading partners. Sa 232-tarifa prepreka uklonjena, koja bi trebala biti automatska, bipartisan decision. Nažalost, although svaka ekonomska analiza naziva barem skroman napredak u odnosu NAFTA, Demokrati se pojaviti nerado odobriti sporazum, jer bi to dati političku pobjedu republikanska predsjednika.

Kao poljoprivrednik, Mogu se nositi s vremenskim. Ja takoÄ‘er mogu nositi s poslovnim ciklusom. What I can’t abide, meÄ‘utim, is politics getting in the way of my ability to grow great crops and sell them to willing customers.

No amount of federal pomoć will change this basic equation.

Najteži pregovori su često najviÅ¡e vrijedi, naravno. I’ve seen this in my life as a farmer, when I’ve tried to rent ili otkup zemljiÅ¡ta. I’ve also seen it as a Sjeverna Dakota State Senator. We just wrapped up this year’s session and, kao i obično, we didn’t solve the hardest problems until the very end.

Pa možda ti trgovački pregovori s Kinom će imati sretan kraj, a možda Kongres će raditi svoj posao i odobriti USMCA.

U međuvremenu, ovdje u farmi zemlji, we just want to grow the food that a hungry world needs.

This column first appeared at Capital Press.