Trump praises farmers and trade

In his third trip to the American Farm Bureau convention, President Trump touts trade, regulatory and economic wins, while thanking farmers for standing with him.

By Holly Spangler, Delta Farm Press

President Donald Trump got right to the point as he addressed American Farm Bureau Federation members late Sunday afternoon, saying of the China trade deal, “I've told everybody you're going to buy a lot of land and you've got to get much bigger tractors right now.”

Speaking for about 45 minutes during his third trip to the annual convention, this year held in Austin, Texas, Trump thanked farmers for standing by him and reiterated the administration’s trade, regulatory and economic successes.

“We were stuck with one of the worst trade deals in history. They said we'll never get a deal done with China,” he reminded the crowd, telling them the trade deal would be a “bonanza.” Under the agreement, China promises to buy on average $40 to $50 billion in American agricultural products annually for each of the next two years, tripling U.S. ag exports to China. Trump pointed to a list of commodities that would benefit from the trade deal, including beef, pork, soybeans, poultry, seafood, rice, dairy, ethanol, eggs, animal feed, and biotech products.

Thanks to the words “on average,” however, the deal leaves room for China to flex on import levels in 2020 and 2021, as AFBF economist Veronica Nigh explains in a recent market report.  You get an average of $40 billion with either $1 billion and $79 billion, or $40 billion and $40 billion.

Trump also touted USMCA, which was passed by the Senate last Thursday, saying it replaced “the catastrophe, the disaster known as NAFTA.” Ag economists have said NAFTA had tremendous value for agriculture, allowing the U.S. to export $40 billion worth of agricultural goods to Mexico and Canada in 2018.

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