1) This... actually pisses me off. A LOT. This level of economic ignorance, that we're going to starve sending our food to China, is just absolutely idiotic in ways that I'm driven to have to explain.
2) First off, the US is the top exporter of food in the world, bar none. We don't produce as much as China or India, but with China specifically they have more people who work agriculture than we have people in the US With great amounts of labor comes many mouths to feed
3) Ton for ton, though, we are the most efficient at producing food by an unbridgeably large margin.
We are SO efficient, we actually have to pay our farmers to NOT grow food to make sure that food prices don't plummet and we don't end up killing EVERYONE'S agriculture.
We are SO efficient, we actually have to pay our farmers to NOT grow food to make sure that food prices don't plummet and we don't end up killing EVERYONE'S agriculture.
4) Think about that for a second. The biggest gun we have to the world's head? That if we wanted to, we could take advantage of our excess capacity for production and feed the world to death with cheap food, destroying everyone's agricultural industries.
5) Really, if we wanted to, we could make up for the trade gap in no time with food exports alone, and that seems to be a lot of what Trump is attempting to do in correcting our trade balances. Why isn't this already the case?
6) BECAUSE THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING CHEATS.
7) In a perfect world, stuff like NAFTA, TPP, trade deals we have with Europe, those would actually benefit us because we can take advantage of our insane food production capabilities and meet everyone pound for pound on food. People defend NAFTA, TPP, etc based on this worldview
8) BUT THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING CHEATS
9) See, there was apparently an outbreak of mad cow disease in 2003. In response, many countries, including South Korea, Japan, China, and Mexico banned US beef, then REFUSED TO LIFT THE BAN. npr.org/sections/thesa…
10) Funny story: The cow actually came from Canada. "Trace-back based on an ear-tag identification number and subsequent genetic testing confirmed that the BSE-infected cow was imported into the United States from Canada in August 2001." cdc.gov/prions/bse/cas…
11) The European Union, our other big trade partner? Claims that GM food is unhealthy with no basis whatsoever, and has been refusing to import our food for years as a result. theguardian.com/environment/20…
12) Yep. Cows we ultimately imported from Canada and Europe's genetically modified food phobia means that Europe, China, and everywhere else get to say fuck these trade deals we signed, the US can go fuck themselves! Oh, but please keep importing all of our steel and such.
13) The US has gotten hosed repeatedly with this crap and for 2 presidents now, we have just let it happen! It shouldn't have to be this way, we shouldn't have to fight this hard to export food which we have VAST comparative advantages in producing.
14) Now some rectally planted cranium Dembies want to say that us INCREASING the exports of the one thing we can beat LITERALLY THE REST OF THE WORLD in producing is BAD?
Fucking. Idiotic.
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Fucking. Idiotic.
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