Farmers are being crushed, screwed over, and plenty of other things by Trump

You probably saw that last year Minnesota’s median farm income was the lowest it's been in the 23 years that the U. of Minn. has been tracking it. A couple more items:

Among those who’re learning about the “truthy-ness” of The Donald are farmers who voted for him, having bought his campaign promise to restore farm prosperity.

Once in office, though, he quickly sold them out, throwing a hissy-fit of a trade war with China that ended up slapping U.S. farmers by lowering the already low prices they get for their crops...

Actions speak louder than words, of course, so on March 11 Trump took actions to express his true love for farmers: He whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, his cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture. - OurFuture.org

The reference is to the Trump budget proposal; cuts like that are highly unlikely to get through Congress. But the point is that that’s where Traitor Trump's head is at.

Some large equipment manufacturers, including John Deere and Caterpillar, announced almost immediately after the tariffs were implemented last summer that they would raise their prices to adjust for the higher price of steel and aluminum imports. It’s not just large manufacturers, though—small, locally based equipment manufacturers have also had to raise prices or look elsewhere for steel. In Montana, a horse-trailer manufacturer was forced to hike prices by about 20 percent last summer because of the tariffs. Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded John Deere’s stock in February, citing “a real risk to farm equipment demand” if the trade war continues.

Many farmers are precluded from buying new agricultural equipment because of a combination of higher prices and lower profits. But that puts them in a catch-22. Farmers replace their equipment only every five to seven years. Those who were going to replace it this year and now can’t afford to are forced to repair it instead. And because steel costs are up, so too are the costs of replacement parts. - The Atlantic