WATCH: Ohio Republican Soybean Farmer Rips Trump’s ‘Hush Money,’ Says China Markets ‘Not Coming Back’
On MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Ohio soybean farmer and registered Republican Christopher Gibbs blasted President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, calling the recent agricultural stimulus packages “hush money” and saying “these markets are not coming back.”
Gibbs, who said he voted for Trump in 2016, explained that he has had a change of heart about the president because of the ongoing economic pain caused by the escalating tariff fight between China and this White House. Even the billions of dollars in bailout payments that Trump has directed to corn and soybean farmers — to make up for huge drops in crop prices and the lack of exports to China — have a bittersweet taste, he said.
“Certainly the administration has put forth the bailouts. I call it hush money to keep farmers sedated,” Gibbs said, before puncturing a falsehood about the impact of the tariffs repeatedly spread by Trump. “Let’s be very clear. Those dollars do not come from China. No matter how many times the president says it, the dollars come right out of the Treasury, right from American taxpayers and to farmers. And the only saving grace to that is that farmers do not sit on that money. They take to it the local hardware store. They take to it the feed store. They buy things with it.”
When Hayes asked about how others in his farming community feel about Trump and his trade and agricultural policy, Gibbs said there is still plenty of support for the president. But he added that Trump’s continued broken promises on trade are starting to wear thin.
“I got off the Trump train a long time ago, particularly through the tariff fight. I’ve spoken out against this for over a year,” Gibbs explained. “But farmers have hung in there. They’re tough. And what they were hanging their hat on was the president’s rhetoric that ‘Trade wars are easy to win. Trade wars are good and trade wars are easy to win.’ And I believe that the president probably told many of the commodity organizations and the advocacy bureaus that hey, maybe six months, nine months and we’re out. And that was borne out by the Secretary of Agriculture who said after the first round of hush money that there wasn’t going to be any more. And then lo and behold, the president comes up with another $16 billion that actually hasn’t been dispersed yet.”
And these ongoing bailouts, Gibbs added, may become a permanent fixture, thanks to Trump’s confrontational and erratic trade policy. After two seasons of buying very little corn and soybeans from US farmers, Chinese importers have moved on to new suppliers, he pointed out.
“The president was never, ever forthright with the American people and he was never forthright with farmers that this was about containment,” Gibbs said. “The president needs to be square with the farmers. These markets are not coming back in this fashion, no matter how many soybeans they want, no matter how much pork they want, these markets are not coming back because supply chains have changed. Supply chains have changed and they have moved to Brazil and they’ve moved to other places.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
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