Rob Johanson
Appearances
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
The president was very interested in making sure that U.S. farmers knew that we were going to have their backs when it came to this terrorist situation.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
I would say that the one difference was that this was a much larger program than we had seen in the past. It had never been used at that level before for an ad hoc type of program to deal with an unforeseen situation.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
We'll compare two things. What is our estimate of damages? That's one number. How much money do we have is another number.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
This is during a dynamic period in which the U.S. government is engaged with negotiations with these other countries, and this program may not be needed in eight months.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
So what does that mean? It means that they're going to be buying over those two years about... You know, $80 billion worth of ag products.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
There has been a fair amount of Monday morning quarterbacking going on about how well we did. Did we make the program too generous in some respects? Were we deficient in other areas? You know, it's all easier to look at in the past when you have four years of historical perspective. And I think it's wise for people to do that now.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
In the United States, we're producing a lot of output.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
The use of fertilizers is more targeted. The use of crop protectants is more targeted. And the crop varieties themselves are getting better. So over time, agriculture is becoming more productive.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
They're the number one country in pork production, for example. So they need a lot of our soybeans to feed their swine herds. And so we are exporting more and more of our soybeans to China for that reason.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
The U.S. felt like a number of countries were oversubsidizing their steel and aluminum production, and so the United States put tariffs on those products.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
There were ships loaded with sorghum from the U.S. that were headed to China for offloading for their market.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
Offloading them in China would have meant facing very high tariffs on those imports.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
Of course, the buyer knows that you need to offload it, you know, quickly.
Planet Money
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
That's when we really first started putting a lot of emphasis into like, what do we do about this? If we know this is going to happen, we know that all of a sudden, not just sorghum, but a lot of other ag products are going to be affected. Cotton, corn, dairy, hogs, soybeans, wheat, and then a number of specialty products that we sold to China like almonds and cherries.