National Taxpayers Union is deeply concerned about the announcement that President Trump plans to use Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendment of 1935 to bail out agribusinesses hurt by our growing trade disputes.
In response, National Taxpayers Union Director of Federal Affairs Nan Swift stated:
“Taxpayers should be outraged at this latest development in our ongoing trade woes. Providing payments and buybacks to farmers merely doubles-down on bad policy and can do little to rectify the harm inflicted on the farm economy. It’s uncertain that markets, once lost to other exporting countries, will return in the future. Using federal funds to purchase excess crops, dairy, or livestock has failed in the past and creates market distortions elsewhere, without any long term benefit. Furthermore, these actions could violate U.S. WTO obligations, leading to even more retaliatory duties on U.S. exports and exacerbating our trade problems. And the notion that our debt-ridden government should borrow billions of dollars more from China and other creditors to hand out to farmers is laughable, when there is an obvious zero-cost solution to the problem.
To maintain a thriving farm economy, farmers need access to markets, not welfare. As Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) observed earlier this year: “We need a market. We need to sell our product. If we do that we don’t need to have some kind of crazy-quilt subsidy program.”
Today’s news makes it all the more urgent that Congress take immediate steps to increase its role in setting trade policies.“