Bailing Out Our Competition

The Trump Administration is preparing to provide $20 billion in assistance to help prop up the Argentine government. This may sound like a noble gesture, but behind the scenes, Argentina is actively competing with American soybean farmers. In essence, we’re funding our competitors!

Technically speaking, the Argentine bailout would be in the form of swap lines, bond purchases, and standby credit. These mind-numbing technical terms boil down to one thing: the American farmer is yet again on the hook for funding Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insists the bailout is about ensuring stability in the Western Hemisphere, to many folks, it smells like yet another case of Washington elites running roughshod over rural America.

The irony is that American Farmers are among the taxpayers subsidizing their competition. Consider this: while the Trump Administration begins structuring the deal, the Argentine government suspended export taxes on all grains, including soybeans, that were as high as 26%. This opens up the Argentine market to motivated international buyers. Not one to let this opportunity pass by, China — the world’s largest soybean importer — took advantage of the suspended export taxes and secured 20 cargo ships, or approximately 1.3 million tons, of Argentine soybeans. With this deal, China will satisfy its demand for soybeans through at least the end of November.

This couldn’t come at a worse time for American farmers. September and October are key harvesting months for soybeans in the U.S. As farmers pull these crops from their fields, they must wonder if they can even sell their harvest and whether their already razor-thin margins will yield any profit for a season’s worth of hard work. The retaliatory tariffs from Trump’s trade wars with China were already stressful enough; they motivated China to look for other suppliers, such as Argentina and Brazil. The end result is that we now face the prospect of propping up a government that will pay us back by driving many of our farmers ever closer to bankruptcy.

For farmers, this is not just an abstract policy debate. They will suffer with lower prices at the elevator, reduced margins, and another season of questioning whether the family farm can survive. As seen in recent years, rural communities are expected to shoulder the impact of the political ambitions of Washington elites and foreign governments.

It’s the same pattern over and over: bold promises of putting America first, followed by policies that leave working Americans paying the price. While it’s certainly worthwhile to invest in foreign governments to help stabilize the world, it shouldn’t fall on one sector of our economy to finance it while other sectors — particularly the rich deal-makers in Washington and Wall Street — make out like bandits in the night.

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