All posts tagged "Farmers"

Texas farmers have long been a sure thing for Republicans. With the midterms just over two weeks away, some of them say that loyalty is being tested.

High fuel and fertilizer prices driven by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran are hitting farmers hard across the state, the Houston Chronicle reported on Saturday.

“We’ve had our ups and downs, but this (economy) ranks with the worst ones I’ve seen,” said Russell Boening, president of the Texas Farm Bureau. “I know that people aren’t happy with everything but, maybe looking at the big picture, they’ll stay true to how they normally vote. Or maybe they stay home.”...

President Donald Trump's rural base is suffering as his administration keeps yanking critical funding, according to a new report.

Iowa farmers are decrying the Trump U.S. Department of Agriculture's cancellation of millions of dollars' worth of grants because of "wasteful spending" and cuts to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to reporting by The Guardian.

"You feel like a slingshot," Jason Grimm, the executive director of the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development, told The Guardian. The Iowa Valley RC&D is a non-profit that used USDA funding to set up and train new farmers....

President Donald Trump lavished praise on himself for building a $400 million ballroom while speaking to farmers who have faced devastation because of his tariff policies.

During a White House event on Friday, Trump told a group of farmers that he had "given" them $12 billion in aid to address the fallout from the tariffs.

The president then paused to admire the ballroom's construction....

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs policy brought Ohio farmer Chris Gibbs into the national spotlight in Trump's first term, when he sent a message asking Trump to consider how his global trade war hurt American agriculture.

After Trump returned to the White House last year and enacted a stream of even more aggressive — if fluctuating — tariffs on global trade, Gibbs felt the need to speak out again.

“It’s such a déjà vu moment,” Gibbs said, “because we're right back in the same situation, right back there, right now, the same doggone thing as 2018.”...

Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson described Friday how the financial crisis among American farmers has become a political crisis for the GOP ahead of the midterm elections.

In his Substack Friday, the co-founder of anti-Trump organization The Lincoln Project, discussed how some of President Donald Trump's most loyal voters have been facing an alarming economic reality.

"Welcome to the 'Find Out' phase of the most expensive political experiment in American history. As we enter 2026, rural America is learning a hard truth: you can’t eat 'owning the libs,' and you can’t pay a mortgage with Facebook memes," Wilson wrote. ...

Ben Palen — a Kansas native and a fifth-generation farmer and agriculture consultant — blasted President Donald Trump’s repeated tactic of putting farmers in distress and then dangling tax-funded salvation before them and hungry developers.

“[T]he Trump administration will provide several billion dollars in bailouts to farmers, with an emphasis on corn and soybean growers,” Palen wrote in the Kansas Reflector. “... Predictably, political dances followed the announcement, with various farm groups issuing statements supporting release of this money.”

“It’s pathetic,” Palen wrote. “It’s especially so when the Republican sycophants who represent Kansas farmers fall all over themselves to pay homage to Trump. How about some honest conversations about what this regime has done to American farmers via a patchwork of actions that show little understanding of international trade and so many other issues?”...