Terry Branstad, the former Iowa governor and now U.S. ambassador to China, told Trump that while farmers may have remained loyal to him despite the economic pain caused by the more than year-long trade war with China, they would not stomach policies favoring the oil industry at their expense, according to four people familiar with the substance of the meeting.
It all comes down to his “trade war” with China, something he’s talked about even before starting to campaign for the presidency.
Now it has to do with allowing refineries to use less ethanol in their fuel blends.
“This was the first time that the president was made fully aware of how angry these farmers are over this issue and that he could have a serious problem in Iowa and potentially other states where this topic is an issue,” said one of the sources.
Caught between a rock and a hard place.
Based on previous administrations, farmers changed their crops from feed corn to varieties designed for ethanol production. Something they can’t change over night.
Before the meeting ended, Trump had already dispatched his Cabinet members to come up with solutions to stem the farm anger, the sources said, setting off a chain reaction that the U.S. corn industry now hopes will mean fresh concessions to help farmers reeling from plunging crop prices and the loss of their biggest export market, China
It’s going to be interesting to see what, if anything, he can do about it.
A lot more @ Trump in high-stakes balancing act between oil and corn ahead of 2020 bid - Reuters
It all comes down to his “trade war” with China, something he’s talked about even before starting to campaign for the presidency.
Now it has to do with allowing refineries to use less ethanol in their fuel blends.
“This was the first time that the president was made fully aware of how angry these farmers are over this issue and that he could have a serious problem in Iowa and potentially other states where this topic is an issue,” said one of the sources.
Caught between a rock and a hard place.
Based on previous administrations, farmers changed their crops from feed corn to varieties designed for ethanol production. Something they can’t change over night.
Before the meeting ended, Trump had already dispatched his Cabinet members to come up with solutions to stem the farm anger, the sources said, setting off a chain reaction that the U.S. corn industry now hopes will mean fresh concessions to help farmers reeling from plunging crop prices and the loss of their biggest export market, China
It’s going to be interesting to see what, if anything, he can do about it.
A lot more @ Trump in high-stakes balancing act between oil and corn ahead of 2020 bid - Reuters