Hey Kansas!
Oops! Maybe the better title should be, "HEY NEBRASKA FARMERS! MISTAKES WERE MADE!”
One way or another, Trump’s shutdown of USAID (US Agency for International Development) halted USAID’s “Food for Peace” purchases. Just like tariffs that constantly change markets, raise consumer prices, and start dangerous trade wars, eliminating “Food for Peace” impacts markets, too.
This means that Kansas farmers' market for sorghum has disappeared, and worse, China has stepped in to fill the void.
What should Kansas farmers do? Under usual times, the sorghum would help shut down hunger in Africa and other regions, and farmers would get paid. But this formerly dependable international market is likely gone. China fills the gap.
Nebraska Farm Bureau president Mark McHargue has publicly discussed how trade disruptions, tariffs, and other broken federal contracts affect his state “exponentially more” than some other states. Nebraska farmers, located within easy reach of nearby markets, export their top crops—beef, soybeans, corn, pork, and soybean meal—to Canada and Mexico. They also take advantage of opportunities to sell to China.
Now, both Nebraska and Kansas ag producers, plus the ag community as a whole, find themselves used as poker chips in Trump’s battle against immigrants — both undocumented and legal.
Elections have consequences, as do sweeping actions on tariffs and stopping contractual payments.
US farmers are in immediate financial trouble. Hungry people get hungrier; their babies die.
These consequences can be expected to make Trump’s stated goal to move all immigrants — undocumented and/or legal, out of the US even more difficult. What happens when people can’t feed their children is first, their babies die, and then, in desperation, they “vote with their feet.”
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Our failure to provide food aid teaches people that they must relocate to areas where food is available. They struggle through dangerous places like the “Darien Gap" and sneak across borders. When they get here, they roll up their sleeves and work.
Meanwhile, our farmers lose markets and go bankrupt; hungry children die, each the result of our government’s deliberate actions. Trump’s poker game continues.