A couple of days ago, I shared a segment from a TV interview about trade and warned that retaliatory tariffs were a painful consequence of Trump’s protectionism.
I also was asked in that interview about the negative effect on farmers. I speculated that farmers (and many other groups) were giving Trump the benefit of the doubt in hopes that this process might actually lead to trade liberalization – sort of like what Trump suggested at the G7 meeting.
While I was depressed and glum in that interview, it turns out that things are worse than I thought.
Instead of keeping their fingers crossed for trade liberalization, farmers may be nonplussed by protectionism because President Trump’s expansion of bad trade policy may also wind up being the pretext for an expansion of bad agricultural policy.
The Wall Street Journal opines on the upside-down logic of Washington.
When pork prices collapsed amid a global trade war during the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration in 1933 had an idea—slaughter six million piglets.
Put a floor under prices by destroying supply. It didn’t work. Now the Trump Administration may try its own version of Depressionomics by using the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to support crop prices walloped by the Trump tariffs: Hurt farmers and then put them on the government dole.
Given the economic misery of the 1930s, it should be obvious that copying the awful policies of Hoover or Roosevelt is never a good idea.
But that’s not stopping the crowd in Washington.
In 2012 Congress put limits on CCC purchases of surplus commodities and on price supports after the Obama Administration used it for a costly 2009 disaster program without Congressional approval. But then out of the blue this year, Congress lifted the limits
on CCC’s power to remove surplus crops from the market to support prices. Republicans made that change because the Trump Administration wants to use the CCC to mitigate the damage to U.S. crop prices from the Trump trade war. In a June 25 USA Today op-ed, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue wrote that the Administration is ready to “begin fulfilling our promise to support producers, who have become casualties of these disputes.” Too bad these U.S. casualties were caused by friendly fire.
And don’t be surprised if today’s handouts wind up becoming permanent entitlements.
The bigger danger is that the need for Mr. Perdue’s “help” is unlikely to be temporary. …With the higher tariff, Beijing will turn even more to Brazil and Argentina for soy and grains; Australia and Chile for fruit, nuts and wine; and Canada and the European Union for some or all. …The CCC is a relic of Dust Bowl America. Today the American farmer is high-tech, productive and eager to compete. Mr. Trump’s trade policy is creating a problem that didn’t exist and next he may create another one to ease the pain he has caused.
In other words, one bad government policy is being used the justify another bad government policy.
This is a classic example of Mitchell’s Law, otherwise known as the lather-rinse-repeat cycle of government failure.
We see it when government over-spending is used as an excuse for big tax increases.
We see it when government-run healthcare is used as an excuse to impose nanny-state policies.
We see it when government drug-war failures are used as an excuse to push for gun control.
And now we’re seeing it when bad trade policy is leading to more bad farm subsidies.
I realize this is pure fantasy, but wouldn’t it be nice to have the reverse approach? How about we simultaneously eliminate trade barriers and get rid of the Department of Agriculture?
Given the inherent corruption of Washington, I won’t hold my breath for that outcome. I’ll have more luck waiting for this fantasy to become reality.
