OPINION: Pro-Inflation Democrats Oppose Trump’s Plan To Help Farmers Boost Production

“The reason farmers need relief at all is largely because Donald Trump betrayed them and decimated their businesses with his disastrous tariffs.” That was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) making a speech on the Senate floor on Dec. 8 opposing President Donald Trump’s $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program. The program is actually a response to unfair trade practices, subsidies, dumping, and tariffs from abroad that have hurt U.S. farmers and other industries for decades that were in place long before President Trump’s second term even began, but who’s counting? For years, trade partners have waged a trade war on the U.S., but we had forgotten how to fight back, until Trump delivered us the most pro-American trade agenda in modern history. The FBA is an important component of the Make America Great Again agenda that puts America first by putting American farmers first. The program is virtually identical to the $28 billion 2018-2019 Market Facilitation Program, and both are authorized by Congress under 15 U.S. Code Sec. 714c, the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, to make direct payments to farmers who are harmed by foreign trade practices and barriers. The Commodity Credit Corp. was established by Congress to “Support the prices of agricultural commodities (other than tobacco) through loans, purchases, payments, and other operations.” Congress has the long-settled power now delegated to all presidents to spend money via the Commodity Credit Corp. that it also had the power to create on agriculture and other industries to support the general welfare, to regulate international trade — trade subsidies are used globally to create trade advantage — and ultimately to protect national security by preventing agricultural depressions (historically, those have led to the collapse of governments). And this is one of the manners in which it chose to do so. That is the power of the purse that Congress has authorized presidents to use — and President Trump is now wisely putting the money to use just as he did during his first administration to support his America First trade agenda by increasing domestic supplies. Many aspects of the New Deal were struck down, but spending money on farmers wasn’t one of them. In practice, the payments should make it easier for farmers to boost production and help bring food prices down in the wake of the Covid and post-Covid expansion of the money supply and simultaneous contraction of global production that fueled the inflation seen since 2021 and 2022 that is still being felt by the American people. Like all other countries, we desperately need to boost production. However, people have also forgotten the temporary global supply chain crisis price shock caused by the pandemic and the pandemic response that led to the inflation in the first place. They don’t remember that shutting down the country has years-long consequences, and this is one of them. Americans for Limited Government has long supported a zero-for-zero approach for agricultural subsidies. That is, when other countries stop subsidizing their exports, then maybe we will, too. But there is no agreement to do that, and so today, subsidies are the cost of doing business. If you just went back to Joe Biden’s tariff levels, all the foreign farm subsidies would still be there, hurting our ability to boost domestic production and bring down prices. Biden was wasting the Commodity Credit Corp. on fighting climate change, and doing nothing to bring down food prices or even advance the U.S. trade position. And overall, Biden was restricting farm production with his environmental rules and via environmental, social, and governance investors to restrict supplies and drive prices up. President Trump, once again, has corrected that problem. Every day the president’s critics in Congress failingly try to knock down his trade program. Think about it: Providing farmers relief was a program created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and now the Democratic leader of the Senate is blasting the Republican president for using it. The framing of this issue to serve some failed globalist, liberal, free-trade narrative that trade-adjustment assistance is somehow a response to U.S. tariffs is wrong. It’s the opposite; farmer relief is a response to foreign tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers Congress has long since granted the president the authority to regulate international trade via the Necessary and Proper Clause to counter with tariffs, sanctions, subsidies, and everything else that strong, sovereign countries have utilized for centuries. One of the ways foreign governments exert a trade advantage, particularly in agriculture, is via subsidies. President Trump is restoring the U.S. trade position globally versus our competitors. We must be able to control the domestic food supply and push prices down. No serious person would object to that. President Trump’s commitment to agriculture is one of the ways farmers will be able to afford to boost domestic production and reduce food prices. Everyone against boosting production is pro-inflation. Fortunately, President Trump is teaching the next generation of leaders how to run a country. You can thank him later.          

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Robert Romano is the executive director of Americans for Limited Government, a conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that says it is dedicated to restoring constitutionally limited government, allowing individuals to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.