A cura di @Billy Pilgrim.

Come riporta il New York Times, l’amministrazione Trump ha annunciato un pacchetto di aiuti da 12 miliardi di dollari per sostenere gli agricoltori colpiti dalla guerra commerciale innescata dallo stesso Trump.

Come riportato dal New York Times, la mossa non è stata accolta benissimo, neanche all’interno del Partito Repubblicano:

The move drew swift condemnation from many farm groups and lawmakers, including several in his own party, who worry about a cascade of unintended consequences that may be just beginning. One farm-group study estimates that corn, wheat and soybean farmers in the United States have already lost more — $13 billion — than the administration is proposing to provide as a result of the trade war. The prospect of retaliation has upended global markets for soybeans, meat and other American farm exports, and farmers are warning that tariffs are costing them valuable foreign contracts that took years to win.

“You have a terrible policy that sends farmers to the poorhouse, and then you put them on welfare, and we borrow the money from other countries,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “It’s hard to believe there isn’t an outright revolt right now in Congress.”

L’agricoltura è uno dei pochi settori in cui gli Stati Uniti hanno un surplus commerciale con il resto del mondo; la guerra commerciale è quindi vista con preoccupazione da alcune associazioni di settore:

Soybeans, the second-most valuable U.S. crop after corn, have been especially hard-hit — exports to China accounted for about one-third of the oilseed’s revenue last year. The USDA projected earlier this month that average soybean prices paid to farmers would fall 75 cents to $9.25 a bushel next year.

Farmer organizations including the American Soybean Association have called the impacts of tariffs on agriculture “devastating.”

Sul suo blog, l’economista libertario Don Boudreaux riassume così la situazione:

For starters, Trump & Co. make us Americans poorer – and less free – by restricting our access to goods offered for sale by non-Americans. And then, in order to purchase the political silence of the most visible and vocal victims of this idiotic and unethical policy, Trump & Co. make the bulk of us Americans poorer still – and less free still – by picking our pockets for the funds that will be used to bribe these relatively small-in-number visible and (otherwse-would-be) vocal victims of Trump’s protectionism into cowardly silence and acquiescence.

Immagine da Flickr.