This exactly.

The fuss made about agricultural subsidies by non-farmers is misguided. Dropping subsidies doesn't make food cheaper, it makes it go away.

Consumers are addicted to cheap food, so they pay taxes instead to make up the difference. Given a progressive tax system this actually is a very efficient approach to take. And overall, as a % of the total budget, these subsidies are insignificant.

What is hurting farmers are reduced markets. USAid used to buy up a lot of surplus production (effectively a back-door subsidy), lots got exported to China et al. Given the economic antagonism towards the US (thanks to things like tarifs and insults) demand for US food exports either dropped naturally (eg Canada) or with reciprocal tarifs (eg China).

Politicians like to say "we don't make things here anymore" ignoring the most fundamental production of all (farming). They destabilize foreign trade, and (if we look at more labor intensive crops) target farm workers for deportation.

To be fair, agriculture states are also red states, so it's fair to say they voted for this.

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mlrtime 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>What is hurting farmers are reduced markets

I know there is a rule about reading the article, but did you? This [trend] is nothing new, USAid has nothing to do with it other than short term changes.

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IG_Semmelweiss 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The vast majority of countries have barriers preventing our highly efficient production from selling in their countries. Think Argentina and meats, Switzerland and all things cattle, EU and pretty much everything.

Tariffs were one way to pry open those markets, but of course, the few agricultural products that were already selling , were affected in the retailiation . It will take some time for things to sort out.

	▲	bruce511 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not surprisingly most countries want to be self sufficient with food production, so tarifs on food imports makes sense. Unfortunately though I don't think US tarifs are the solution here. Leaving aside that antagonizing the end-consumer seems unproductive (eg canada) there's also a perception in Europe that US food products (especially meat) are of low quality. Whether that perception US true or not US immaterial. (My own visits to the US and experience of US food would suggest the US optimizes for quantity not quality, but anecdotes are not data.) Much of the barrier with exporting beef are the higher food standards, and documentation, required in Europe. Lowering the standards doesn't seem to be politically acceptable either.