Thanks to a nice plug from President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, has a best-selling book on his hands.
And thanks to Trump’s easy-to-win trade war, Arkansas farmers, the top rice producers in the world, can’t sell their rice to China, the top rice consumer in the world.
But keep things in perspective, farmers, the kind of perspective provided by Cotton, a man supported by U.S. taxpayers: Americans’ sacrifice in this trade dispute is “pretty minimal” compared to those made by American servicemen.
Cotton made these comments on May 13, when, as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette noted, “soybean prices were dropping to the lowest levels in a decade, on a day when the Dow Jones industrial average fell 617.38 points.”
Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach told the D-G that Arkansas agriculture is facing a “slow disaster.” And Mark Holt of Riceland Foods told Arkansas Business that after the rice industry had worked for years to gain access to the huge China market, the trade war meant that it was locked out of that market, at least for now.
That $16 billion in aid to farmers promised by the Trump administration Thursday will help, but the farmers we know would rather be selling their crops to a hugely promising new market.
And have we mentioned that Forrest City is still desperately hoping for those 800 jobs promised by a Chinese company planning to open a $410 million textile plant?
It, too, is collateral damage from this easy-to-win trade war.
We agree with Cotton that the sacrifices being asked of Arkansas farmers do not strictly compare to those made by service members. But the United States has a volunteer military, and Arkansas farmers didn’t sign up for a lengthy trade war.
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