So, honestly, I want to make sure I’ve got this straight.
- There was relatively free trade;
- We enact tariffs on agricultural imports to make them more expensive to American consumers;
- Other countries retaliate with their own tariffs, diminishing demand for American products;
- Farmers are selling less and making less money;
- So the U.S. government starts writing them checks to compensate with money we don’t have (in case the whole “$21 trillion in debt” thing wasn’t quite clear yet)
So, net result – – American consumers worse off with higher prices. Foreign consumers worse off for the same reason. American taxpayers paying for billions of checks being written to farmers.
Brilliant.
Oh, and if you take a look at the chart below of agricultural commodities, I’d say the trend is bigger than the pork barrel spending being wasted on politically placating gargantuan agricultural conglomerates.
This is going to be a blip, and all the tax money you ever paid out in your entire life is going to be flushed down the toilet. Booyah!
