President Donald Trump has distinguished himself during his time in office with his incessantly antagonistic foreign policy. Furthering his America First agenda, his administration has slapped rounds of tariffs on goods from all around the world, and in the face of ensuing retaliatory tariffs, the feds unveiled a plan for bailout money for American farmers — including, apparently, people who live in cities as opposed to actually on a farm.
Some $1 million of the so far disbursed $356 million has gone to city dwellers who don’t actually, in presumably most to all cases, depend on their farms for their livelihoods. Manhattan architect Scott Yocom, for instance, who spoke to The Washington Post, got $3,300, despite the fact that he only spends a couple weeks on the family farm back in Ohio a year.
The information has come to light thanks to the Environmental Working Group, which chronicled a total of about 87,704 bailout payments in data released Monday after the feds caved to a Freedom of Information Act request from the organization. Elsewhere, the USDA has been sharing the identity of those benefiting from a particular facet of the bailout program — over $1 billion in government purchases of farm products meant to be redistributed to places like food banks.
Executive director of the farmers advocacy group the Organization for Competitive Markets Joe Maxwell — who himself is a farmer — commented:
‘The bailout itself is benefiting a class of individuals who are not the American family farmer who is paying the price of the trade war. The Trump administration has it in their power to restrict who receives the farmer bailout funds, and they should take immediate action to ensure America’s farmers are the ones who receive these limited funds.’
The government, meanwhile, has asserted that they are not going out of line in distributing the cash to city dwellers, insisting recipients must prove an ownership stake in a farm in order to benefit.
United States Department of Agriculture spokesperson Tim Murtaugh insisted that the requirements match those of other agency programs, explaining:
‘In order to receive a payment, the producer has to meet the minimum ‘Actively Engaged in Farming’ criteria. Those regulations are used to determine eligibility for all of our other Farm Bill commodity programs. The producers also have to maintain ownership over the commodity for which they are receiving a payment… A producer has to prove actual production of a crop to qualify for market facilitation assistance.’
Still, concerned interests say the government should redesign the program in order to actually more directly benefit those must hurt by the trade wars Trump has sparked.
The president has insisted that trade wars are “good,” since they supposedly push other countries to treat the U.S. more “fairly” — but in the meantime, American farmers and industry interests continue to face hardship.
Large values of foreign purchases of American farm products have been cancelled, while American interests trying to work with the steel and aluminum the administration has slapped tariffs on have found their activities threatened.
The issues fit into the broader picture of Trump subjecting the government to his personal petty political agenda.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
