Pennsylvania farmers are going to need bigger tractors, because President Trump is rapidly revitalizing American agriculture.
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has done everything in his power to keep American farmers prosperous and productive, ensuring that around 825,000 food and agricultural workers in the Keystone State are not left behind by Washington.
“My administration is fighting for the American farmer, and has been fighting for the farmer and the rancher every single day,” Donald Trump said during a recent speech at the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Convention.
Those efforts have not gone unnoticed — according to a recent Farm Journal Pulse poll, the president’s approval rating among farmers has just hit an all-time high of 83%.
That wasn’t supposed to happen, at least according to the conventional wisdom in Washington. Democrats and free-trade zealots decried President Trump’s strategy of imposing strategic tariffs on countries that engage in abusive trade practices, emphasizing the economic calamity they expected to befall farmers as a result of the “trade war.”
Although China did try to put the squeeze on American farmers in the early phases of the ongoing bilateral trade negotiations, the president was prepared for that tactic. By offering federal financial assistance to offset the temporary losses farmers endured from a drop in exports to China, he ensured that the agriculture sector would be able to weather the storm until China inevitably backed down.
Now that President Trump has extracted concessions from Beijing, farmers are being rewarded handsomely for their patience.
Under the terms of the “Phase One” trade deal, China has agreed to purchase at least $40 billion in agricultural products from American farmers and ranchers — a significant boost in exports that will be particularly beneficial for states with robust agricultural sectors such as Pennsylvania.
Farmers got more good news with congressional approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is projected to increase gross domestic product by nearly $70 billion and support the creation of 176,000 new jobs by increasing trade with our two closest neighbors. Pennsylvania sold $15 billion worth of exports to Mexico and Canada in 2018, including nearly $1 billion in processed food, and the USMCA will significantly expand access to those markets — especially for staples such as dairy and poultry products.
“The USMCA, as we call it, will massively boost exports for farmers, ranchers, growers, and agricultural producers from North to South, and from sea to shining sea,” President Trump explained.
This is only the beginning. The Trump administration is hard at work negotiating the second phase of the U.S.-China trade agreement, and the president is also working to expand our trade relations with allies such as France and the United Kingdom.
“We look forward to negotiating a tremendous new deal with the United Kingdom,” the president announced recently, adding that Prime Minister Boris Johnson “very much wants” a bilateral agreement.
Meanwhile, the president continues to implement his pro-growth economic agenda by shrinking the Draconian regulatory state erected under President Obama. Unlike radical Democrats, who have embraced the regulatory monstrosity known as the “Green New Deal,” Donald Trump knows that the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people — not micromanagement by federal bureaucrats — is the real source of long-term prosperity.
“Before I took office, American agriculture was being crushed by an onslaught of massive taxes; crippling regulations; burdensome federal mandates,” President Trump remarked during his speech to the Farm Bureau. Today, he said, “we are winning for our farmers, and we are winning like never before.”
If we keep winning like this, our factories will need to start churning out bigger tractors — and lots of ‘em — so that farmers in Pennsylvania and across the country can keep up with all the new demand for American agricultural products.