Trump’s offer to ‘pay-off’ farmers with $12 Billion from a broke US Treasury isn’t making some GOPer’s happy….
The question is?
What will they do?
President Donald Trump’s bailout for the ag industry is driving his many Republican trade critics to exasperation.
Pro-free trade Republicans were already furious with Trump’s escalation of tariffs against U.S. allies and China — a multi-front trade war they say is hurting U.S. farmers and manufacturers. But the administration’s response Tuesday — announcing plans to send $12 billion to farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs to ease the pain — is the opposite of conservative, free-trade orthodoxy, they said.
“This is becoming more and more like a Soviet type of economy here: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “I’m very exasperated. This is serious.”
“Taxpayers are going to be asked to initial checks to farmers in lieu of having a trade policy that actually opens and expands more markets. There isn’t anything about this that anybody should like,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader. He suggested the new spending might need to be offset by cuts in other funding areas.
Trump’s move on Tuesday highlighted what’s become the largest and most painful divide between his presidency and the congressional GOP: his protectionist trade policies. And a number of senators have been itching to tie the president’s hands from making unilateral tariff policy with legislation that would require Congress to approve of unilateral tariffs that are imposed with the justification of national security…..
What will they “do?”
You’ve already seen it.
They’ll run their mouths.
That’s my question also Jack…..