Local News, Entertainment & More - Racine, Wisconsin, USA
Sunday, September 15, 2019
'We're Tightening Our Belt': Trump's Midwest Support Tested As Farmers Struggle
An Iowa farmer loads corn seeds into the tanks on a
planter near Luxemburg, Iowa. Forty percent of the United States' corn
crop goes to ethanol production.
Farmers in the rural Midwest say they are struggling because of
President Trump's ongoing trade war and a recent decision the president
made on renewable fuels made from corn and soybeans that benefits the
oil industry.
"We're tightening our belt," farmer Aaron Lehman
says while driving his tractor down a rural road near his farm north of
Des Moines, Iowa. "We're talking to our lenders, our landlords [and] our
input suppliers."
Lehman, the president of the Iowa Farmers
Union, says his members say they're trying to find any way to cut costs
just to make ends meet. He says they're concerned about the escalating
trade war.
"Instead we chose to insult our trade allies, pick
all sorts of fights with our trade allies," Lehman says. "And then go to
China and make outrageous demands that we knew were not going to be
met."
The Trump administration has doled out billions of
dollars in relief to farmers for taking the brunt of the trade war. It's
an economic short-term positive deal to fill a gap, but it doesn't fix a
long-term problem of not having access to foreign markets.
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