{"id":315763,"date":"2025-09-24T07:30:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T07:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=315763"},"modified":"2025-09-25T06:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:14:16","slug":"trumps-destruction-of-us-economy-starting-with-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=315763","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Destruction of US Economy, Starting with Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Hudson \u2013 The Unz Review Sept 19, 2025<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Trump has created a crisis for U.S. agriculture with his Cold War weaponization of foreign trade with China and Russia, for manufacturing as a result of his steel and aluminum tariffs, for consumer price inflation mainly from his tariffs, and for affordable housing with his tax cuts that have kept long-term interest rates high for mortgages, auto and equipment purchases, and deregulation of markets giving a free hand to monopoly pricing.<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    Trump\u2019s Impoverishment of U.S. Agriculture<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Trump has created a perfect storm for U.S. agriculture, first in his Cold War policy that has closed off China as a soybean market against and Russia, second in his tariff policy blocking imports and thus raising prices for farm equipment and other inputs, and third in his inflationary budget deficits that are keeping interest rates high for housing and farm mortgage loans and equipment financing \u2013 while keeping farmland prices low.<\/p>\n

    The most notorious example is soybeans, America\u2019s major farm export to China. Trump\u2019s weaponization of U.S. foreign trade treats exports and imports as tools to deprive foreign countries dependent on access to U.S. markets for their exports, and on U.S.-controlled exports of essential commodities such as food and oil (and most recently, high technology for computer chips and equipment). After Mao\u2019s revolution in 1945, the U.S. imposed sanctions on U.S. grain and other food exports to China, hoping to starve out the new Communist government. Canada broke this food blockade \u2013 but it has now become an arm of U.S. NATO foreign policy.<\/p>\n

    Trump\u2019s weaponizing of foreign trade \u2013 keeping open a constant U.S. threat to cut off exports on which other countries have come to depend \u2013 has led China to totally stop its advance purchases from this year\u2019s U.S. soybean crop. China understandably seeks to avoid being threatened by a food blockade again, and has imposed 34% tariffs on U.S. soybean imports. The result has been a shift in its imports to Brazil, with zero purchases in the United States so far in 2025. This is traumatic for U.S. farmers, because four decades of soybean exports to China have resulted in half of U.S. soybean production normally being exported to China; in North Dakota the proportion is 70%.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

    China\u2019s shift in its soybean purchases to Brazil is irreversible, as that country\u2019s farmers have adjusted their planting decisions accordingly. As a member of BRICS, especially under President Lula\u2019s leadership, Brazil promises to be much a more reliable supplier than the United States, whose foreign policy has designated China as an existential enemy. There is little chance of China responding to a U.S. promise to restore normal trade by shifting its imports away from Brazil, because that would be traumatic for Brazilian agriculture and would make China an unreliable a trade partner.<\/p>\n

    So the question is, what is to become of the enormous amount of U.S. farmland that has been devoted to soybean production? Unable to find foreign markets to replace China, farmers are reported to suffer a loss on their soybean production, which is piling up in excess of existing crop storage capacity. The result is a threat of farm foreclosures and bankruptcy, which would lower prices for farmland. And as interest rates remain high for long-term loans such as mortgages, this deters small farmers from acquiring troubled properties. The result is to accelerate the concentration of farmland in the hands of large absentee financial funds and the wealthy.<\/p>\n

    This shift is irreversible. Despite the Supreme Court ruling that Trump\u2019s tariffs are unconstitutional and therefore illegal, it seems likely that Trump could simply have the bipartisan anti-China Congress and Senate impose these tariffs. In any case, Trump\u2019s policy represents a sea change, a quantum leap into U.S. coercive trade aggression.<\/p>\n

    There is zero chance of U.S. China trade in soybeans or other basic Chinese needs from being revived. Neither it nor other countries threatened by U.S. trade aggression can take the risk of depending on the U.S. market.<\/p>\n

    America\u2019s agricultural cost and income squeeze goes far beyond soybean sales. Production costs are also rising as a result of Trump\u2019s tariffs, especially on farm machinery, fertilizer and credit tightness as the risk of farm debt arrears increase.<\/p>\n

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      Trump\u2019s tariffs are raising U.S. industrial costs of production<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Trump\u2019s tariff anarchy also is causing losses and layoffs of two thousand employees for John Deere and Company, with a demand also falling for other manufacturers of farm equipment. The most serious problem is that its harvesting equipment, like automobiles and all other machinery, is made out of steel, along with aluminum. Trump has broken the basic logic for tariffs \u2013 to promote the competitiveness of high-profit capital-intensive industry (especially for established monopolies), largely by minimizing the cost of raw materials. Steel and aluminum are basic raw materials.<\/p>\n

      These tariffs have hit John Deere in two ways. For its domestic production, sales are low because of the depression of farm income cited above. Yields have soared this year for corn as well as soybean, leading their prices and farm income to decline. That limits the ability of farmers to buy new machinery.<\/p>\n

      Deere imports about 25 percent of the components of its products, whose cost of is increased as a result of Trump\u2019s tariffs.[2]<\/a> Deere\u2019s manufacturing facilities in Germany have been especially hard hit. Trump surprised Deere by ruling that over and above his 15% import tariffs on imports from the EU, he is imposing a 50% tax on the steel and aluminum content of these imports.<\/p>\n

      That also hits foreign producers of farm equipment, leading to new complaints by EU about Trump\u2019s constant \u201csurprises\u201d in adding to his demand for \u201cgivebacks\u201d in exchange for not raising tariffs on imports from the EU even further.<\/p>\n

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        Trump\u2019s Fight to Accelerate Foreign Reliance on Oil and Hence Global Warming<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Opposing any alleviation to global warming, Trump has withdrawn from the Paris agreement and has cancelled subsidies for wind power, and also for public transportation. This is the effect of lobbying by the oil industry. Not only is U.S. foreign policy dominated by the demand to control oil as the key to weaponizing foreign trade sanctions, but also U.S. domestic economic policy. Soon after World War II ended, Los Angeles tore up its streetcars, forcing its inhabitants to join the automobile economy. Dwight Eisenhower initiated the interstate highway program to favor auto transportation \u2013 and with it the consumption of oil.<\/p>\n

        Also plaguing U.S. agriculture is a deepening water shortage for crops and destruction caused by flooding, drought and other extreme weather. One cause is the extreme weather resulting from global warming, which Trump denies as part of his policy to support U.S. oil and coal while actively fighting against wind and solar energy production. He has withdrawn U.S. support for the Paris Agreement with other nations to de-carbonize world production.<\/p>\n

        Insurance costs are rising to unaffordable levels for many areas most prone to storms and flooding, much as the annual cost of housing has soared in Miami and other Florida cities and the southern border states threatened by hurricanes.<\/p>\n

        A parallel disruption is the rising electric price as well as a water shortage caused by the rising demand to cool the computers needed for Trump\u2019s support of automatic intelligence and quantum computing. The increasing demand for electricity far beyond the investment plans by power utilities to increase their production. Such planning takes many years \u2013 and utilities are happy to see the shortages push demand far above supply, enabling prices for electricity to be one of the major contributors to inflating the cost of production.<\/p>\n

        Trump and his cabinet have made fun of China for spending so much money on its high-speed train service. Western calculations of economic efficiency leave out the all-important balance-of-payments effects of this rail development: It avoids forcing Chinese to drive cars using imported oil. China has no domestic oil industry to dominate its economic planning or foreign policy. In fact, its foreign policy aims regarding the oil trade are the opposite of those in in the United States.<\/p>\n

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          Trump\u2019s Sanctions to Weaponize U.S. Exports to Its Designated Enemies<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Trump\u2019s (and Congress\u2019s threat) to sabotage exports of computer switches with secret \u201ckill switches\u201d to turn them off by U.S. fiat has led China to cancel its planned purchases from Nvidia. The company has warned that without the profits from exports to China, it will be unable to afford the R&D needed to keep competitive and maintain its monopoly on chip manufacturing.<\/p>\n

          These trade policies slashing U.S. export markets and imports are just one reason why the dollar is weakening. Other causes are declining tourism as a result of U.S. harassment, especially of foreign students from China, on which U.S. universities have depended as the highest-paying students.<\/p>\n

          These non-trade balance-of-payments trends explain why Trump\u2019s high-tariff policy has not led the dollar\u2019s exchange rate to strengthen despite its effect on discouraging imports. Normally that would increase the trade balance. But Trump\u2019s war against all other countries (mainly his European allies, Japan and Korea) has led to a shift of their dependency on U.S. exports (such as soybean) and products against which they are retaliating in order to protect their own balance of payments, e.g., cutbacks in foreign tourism to the U.S., foreign students, dependency on U.S. arms exports \u2013 and most of all, financial capital flight seeing that the shrinking U.S. home market must cut into foreign profits and the dollar\u2019s decline will reduce its valuation in foreign-currency terms.<\/p>\n

          Also, as BRICS and other countries conduct trade in their own currencies, this reduces their need to hold foreign-exchange reserves in dollars. They are shifting to each others\u2019 currencies, and of course to gold, whose price has just soared over $3,500 an ounce.<\/p>\n

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            Trump\u2019s Sharp Increase in Inflation, from Electricity and Housing to Industrial Products Made Out of Aluminum and Steel, or Subject to Crippling Tariffs on the Supply of Parts and Necessary Inputs<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Trump\u2019s decision to impose tariffs on basic inputs, headed by aluminum and steel, are increasing prices for every industrial product made out of these metals.<\/p>\n

            And of course, his tariffs generally are rising prices across the board as companies have waited a polite month or so before raising prices as their existing inventories of goods produced by China, India and other countries are exhausted.<\/p>\n

            Trump\u2019s deportation of immigrants has increased the cost of construction, which relied largely on immigrant labor \u2013 as did agriculture in California and other states at harvest time. It is not clear who, if anyone, will replace this labor.<\/p>\n

            Instead of attracting foreign investment as Trump has demanded that Europe and other trade \u201cpartners\u201d provide, he has made this market much less desirable. What he has done is provide an object lesson in what other countries need to avoid in creating regulations, tax rules and trade policy to minimize their costs of production and become more competitive.<\/p>\n

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              Monetary Policy Is Sharply Increasing Long-Term Interest Rates, Even if Short-Term Rates Decline<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Long-term interest rates determine the cost of mortgages, and thus the affordability of housing. Trump\u2019s inflationary policy also increased interest rates for long-term bonds. The effect is to concentrate borrowing at short-term maturities, concentrating the problems of rolling over debt in times of financial crisis. This impairs the resilience of the economy.<\/p>\n

              Many consumer goods imports are bought by the ultra-rich \u2013 the 10% of the population who are reported to account for 50% of consumer spending, For them, higher prices simply increase the prestige of such conspicuous-consumption status items (including expensive food delicacies).<\/p>\n

              Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

              [1]<\/a> Alan Rappeport and Tim Gruber, \u201cChina\u2019s Snub of U.S. Soybeans Is Creating a Crisis for Farmers,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 16, 2025.<\/p>\n

              [2]<\/a> Kevin Draper, \u201cJohn Deere Sputtering As Farmers Struggle,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 15, 2025.<\/p>\n

              (Republished from Naked Capitalism<\/a> by permission of author or representative)<\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              Michael Hudson examines Trump\u2019s policies, which are contributing to America\u2019s economic decline <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":306411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Economics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315764,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315763\/revisions\/315764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/306411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}