Political Tribune

2024, Donald Trump, Economy, Immigration, International Affairs, Opinion

Trump Likely Just Pissed Off Farmers In Pennsylvania By Threatening John Deere With Exorbitant Amount Of Tariffs

This isn't going to go over well with farmers.

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605 points

Donald Trump just found a sure-fire way to keep America’s farmers from voting for him by threatening John Deere with a 200 percent tariff if the company moves much of its manufacturing base to Mexico if he becomes president. He made a pit stop in Smithton, Pennsylvania to speak to farmers and announce his intentions.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t win anyone over here, especially since he announced his intentions to levy this tariff at least three times. And rather emphatically at that.

“John Deere — and anybody else that does this, because it’s hurting our farmers, it’s hurting our manufacturing, and if you do that you’re gonna have a 200 percent tariff put on the products that you make in Mexico, right across the border. They think they’re gonna make product cheaper in Mexico and then sell it here for the same price and make a lot of money by getting rid of our laborers and our jobs and really a great name, because John Deere is a great name.”

He went on to say that as a private citizen he buys several of the company’s products. “I’m one of their big customers,” he added. Trump went on to say that this would mean “one of two things, our country’s gonna make a lot of money, or they’re not gonna build, they’re not gonna open — or they’re gonna sell it to another country. They’re entitled to do that.”

But then he elaborated, weirdly, on something that was absurd: Tariffs within the U.S. Which everyone knows isn’t a thing here.

“If they want to build in the country, in the United States, there’s no tariff. You can go ahead and build in any one of the 50 states, you can do that,” Trump said. “But if you don’t want to do that, we’re gonna put a 200 percent tariff on Jon Deere, and you know what’s gonna happen? They’re going to announce very shortly — if they think I’m going to win or if I do win — they are gonna announce that they’re not gonna build in Mexico.”

Trump is supposed to be a businessman. He’s always yammering about this. Does he not understand that Jon Deere and other companies that manufacture farm products may raise their prices even more? Does he not understand how this is going to impact farmers?

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The U.S. is smack dab in the middle of a farming crisis as it is. Over the course of five years, 141,733 farms have vanished because of a broken workforce that has hemorrhaged laborers. So while farmers now have to deal with a shortage of workers, which means, of course, less revenue for farming households, this may also force them to pay higher prices for the goods they need. To produce the food we need.

Farmers are the backbone of this country, but Trump is not interested in their welfare. If he was, he would have taken steps to ameliorate this problem. But instead, he continues to clamp down on immigrants amid a workforce that’s aging, and as Newsweek reports:

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis issued a report in December that highlighted challenges in finding farm labor due to a decreasing influx of migrant workers and an aging workforce, notably in the Ninth District, comprising parts of the Midwest and Upper Midwest. The labor shortage has led to a “much worse” situation over the past five years for many in the agricultural sector, according to the Minneapolis Fed.”

“A report by Kansas State University and the Kansas Department of Agriculture issued in November found that addressing farm labor shortages could boost Kansas’s economy to the sum of $11.7 billion.”

This is what Trump should have been working on and if he’s elected again he needs to address this issue as well as effectively dealing with tariffs. Slapping companies with a 200 percent tariff hike may encourage some companies to stay in the U.S. but for those companies who move abroad, it will mean higher prices for farmers who are already struggling to survive as it is.

This, of course, led to commentary from social media users.

@rkfatheree noted, “He can’t learn from his mistakes but farmers can,” and added other reasons why Trump can’t be trusted on the issue of raising tariffs.

Indeed a “businessman” who has gone bankrupt time and again and run a fraudulent university can’t really be trusted on any issues like this.

@jkre1244 quipped, “Only a stable genius would believe increasing the cost of farm equipment would help our farmers.”

‘Trump is telling farmers he’s going to put a 200% tariff on John Deere products. Does he not realize these products are FOR farmers, they’re not competition. So, that cost will get passed onto the farmers in the room with him,” added @the greatgig8.

And lastly, @Mohamedida pointed out:

Do I really need to say more?

Featured image via Political Tribune gallery.

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Megan Hamilton

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Megan Colleen Hamilton was born and raised on progressive politics and she has long fought for liberal causes. She has lived in the Pacific Northwest, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, parts of Mexico, and now Central America. Her travels have further informed her progressive beliefs in these troubled times. She is currently owned by 10 cats, two dogs, and one naughty rabbit. She actually is one of those “childless cat ladies.”

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