96% of Trump tariffs are being paid by us

“Us” meaning U.S. importers and consumers. I’ve seen where even some progressive commenters have questioned how much damage the Trump tariffs are actually doing, because overall inflation hasn’t spiked. They may have overlooked how even small individual hits add up. There are also indications that importers are no longer in a position to absorb a substantial share of the tariff hits, and that an inflation spike for consumers is on its way. We'll see.

President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.

However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump’s tariffs.

After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers. - Common Dreams

$44B in projected farm losses

As many have been pointing out, Trump-voting farmers will be bailed out essentially by blue state taxpayers, including Minnesota’s. It would be great if they’d get their shit together when it comes to their politics.

Soybeans sit in storage, farm bankruptcies are rising, and total farm debt continues to climb. By nearly every measure, American farmers are struggling.

Experts say financial pressures are expected to continue mounting.

Due to rising costs, low crop prices and the effects of the trade war, economists project that growers could see roughly $44 billion in net cash income losses from their 2025–26 crops. - Investigate Midwest

Latest big China "deal" does little for farmers

Or for anyone else. In their desperate efforts to produce some - indeed, any - kind of plausible false equivalence in the case of Trump, corporate “news” media has been pimping this as a triumph. Which is a preposterous, and pathetic, take.

The agricultural purchases required in the agreement are both vague and clearly far too small to restore even the conditions that existed before Trump’s actions sent China looking to South America and other regions to replace goods they would have previously purchased from America. In 2019, farm debt topped $416 billion—absolutely swamping the scale of Trump’s “enormous deal,” even when including non-agricultural products. 

Even as bankruptcy is up 24% in a single year, Trump is telling America’s farmers that it’s time to buy “much larger tractors” to generate all the grain required by this deal. Trump says that he expects China to buy $50 billion of U.S. agricultural products. That $50 billion figure is one that Trump has deployed before. It’s just that the date keeps shifting. And shifting. That number is imaginary, but the exploding farm debt and bankruptcies are very real. - Daily Kos

Farm bankruptcies jump, thanks to Trump

I say, that title rhymes, did you notice? But this is in fact nothing to be lighthearted and clever about.

A tit-for-tat tariff dispute between the Trump administration and China has piled on pressure in an already strained Farm Belt, leaving an increasing number of growers unable to stay afloat. 

Farmers filed 580 Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings between January and September, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest farm advocacy group in the country. That was a 24% increase from the previous year and the highest level since 2011, when there were 676 filings. 

China placed steep tariffs on US farm products last year to retaliate against punitive moves by the Trump administration, adding to challenges for farmers already faced with harsh weather conditions and low commodity prices. Those have sent exports sharply lower and made it difficult for growers to plan the next harvest. - Business Insider

Trump never had a coherent tariff/farm plan

When Trump was just a failed "businessman," what he did didn't matter so much.

That giant cliff in Thursday’s stock market report comes down to one thing—one big thing. Donald Trump has admitted that his negotiations with China have gone nowhere, his promised deal in which China was going to buy more U.S. farm products never existed, and in a month he plans to increase the tariffs on China to cover another $300 billion worth of goods...

Meanwhile, former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn admits that the tariffs are doing more harm to the U.S. than to China. Speaking to The Independent, Cohn stated that he didn’t really think the tariffs are impacting the Chinese economy. But they are having a “dramatic impact” on American manufacturing. - Daily Kos

There has been news and discussion, though little of it in corporate "news" media, about Trump's pathological narcissistic and delusional disorders. But what gets far less attention anywhere is that the guy is just so god-damned pathetically just fucking unbelievably stupid.

The latest U.S.-China trade talks broke down after half a day.

How much are farmers supposed to put up with, from this pitiful idiot?

The latest.

President Trump is bragging about a new deal with Mexico that provides for "large" sales of U.S. farm goods, but it doesn't appear to exist.

In weekend tweets, he announced in all capital letters that he had won the agreement to benefit America's "great patriot farmers," and that U.S. sales would begin "immediately." There isn't any sign of that happening, however. Mexican officials denied that anything on agriculture was included in the deal on border security reached Friday to avert Trump's threatened tariffs. - MPR/Associated Press

Incidentally, Trump is in conniptions over media coverage of his latest “triumph.” Yet corporate media for the most part keeps coddling him. We’ll see if that keeps up into next year, when most people will actually start paying some attention to the 2020 election.

One more related item:  “As foreign investment in U.S. farmland grows, efforts to ban and limit the increase mount” - The New Food Economy

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

Farmers still taking it on the chin thanks to Trump incompetence and stupidity

These items speak for themselves. Especially the one about Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN).

One economic expert after another said Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, Mexico, and other key trading partners would not benefit the United States, and now U.S. taxpayers are stuck with the bill. U.S. farm exports such as soybeans, pork, and even cheese have plummeted, while countries like Russia are enjoying some of their biggest orders in history, as giant markets like China turn to new suppliers. 

As Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reports (Feb. 22), the biggest losers in Trump’s trade war appear to be all of us taxpayers, who have had to disburse $7.7 billion to keep American’s farmers afloat. - Daily Kos 

- "After Trump Shutdown costs the United States economy $11 billion, MN08 Stauber wants to Empower the “Imperial President” with more Tariff Authority" - MN Political Roundtable

- "Why Minnesota legislators are so worried about the state's farmers" - MinnPost

The Farm Bill saga drags on

There are some mildly inconsistent accounts of what’s going on with the Farm Bill, based on what I could find this morning. This probably sums up the current state of affairs as well as anything. Having it wait until next year, with greater input from a Democratic House, would be better, but I rather doubt that that will happen.

Leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees say they still hope to finish a farm bill this session, but they have not shown signs of reaching a final agreement. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has hinted that the farm bill might be added to the appropriations bill so that House leadership would not have to bring it up as a separate piece of legislation. Meanwhile, Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who will chair the House Ag Committee next year, says that if the bill does not pass, he wants to organize his committee quickly in January and bring up the farm bill in short order. - Hoosier Ag Today

A couple of related items: