While farmers and those who represent farm-state interests may be grateful for $12 billion in aid to offset the loss of exports in an escalating trade war with China, the European Union, Canada and Mexico, many say they would prefer stable markets to government aid.
Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley issued a statement Tuesday saying he doesn't fault the President for trying to get a better deal for Americans.
"The President's announcement of billions of dollars in aid that will be made available to struggling farmers later this year is encouraging for the short term. What farmers in Iowa and throughout rural America need in the long term are markets and opportunity, not government handouts."
Nebraska GOP Senator Ben Sasse on Morning Edition Wednesday said once export markets are lost, they don't come back easily.
"If you start to alternatively supply from Brazil or Argentina some of the crops that are now mostly sold and exported by Iowans and Nebraskans and other farmers in the U.S., what we know historically is when your markets return, if they return, 80 percent is usually the high water mark of what you used to have," he said. "So you can give people short-term money, but it doesn't mean that they again have the long-term economic trading relationships they had, want, or need."
In this edition of politics day on River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with Jim McCormick, political science professor from Iowa State University, and Wayne Moyer, Rosenfield professor of political science at Grinnell College, about the farm aid proposal, as well as other political news.
