Former State Representative, and current State Director of Americans for Prosperity South Dakota Don Haggar has an opinion piece in AgWeek how continuing wars over tariffs are hurting South Dakota’s farmers:
After it imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports in September, the Trump administration said that the 10 percent duties would “protect the interests of working men and women, farmers, ranchers, businesses, and our country itself.”
Just the opposite has happened. Those are the exact people – many of whom live in our state – who are being hurt by those same tariffs and the tariffs that China has imposed in retaliation.
The good news is there is a path to greater prosperity if the administration will take it. If instead our leaders cling to self-destructive tariffs, they will make a bad situation worse.
and…
While the administration late last year postponed for three months a 25 percent tariff that was scheduled to kick in Jan. 1, its original 10 percent levy remains in effect. The new March 1 deadline is fast approaching. That presents an opportunity for the administration to reverse these troubling economic trends.
We share with the administration a concern about China’s efforts to steal intellectual property and policies that force technology transfers. But tariffs – which are a tax on American consumers and businesses – are not the way to get there.
I think everyone wants countries such as China to deal fairly with the United States. And if we can find a way that will not damage our state, maybe we can work towards restoring South Dakota’s farm economy.
The great negotiator is getting laughed out of trade talks because they know he isn’t too bright. Funny how this is hurting us exactly like was predicted and yet Repubs still support the clown in office. Trump only wins when he can bankrupt his opponent. He is the bankruptcy King for a reason and no US financial institution will ever deal with him again. Oh, where are those tax returns? Poor guy doesn’t want everyone to know he is a fraud.
I see the friends of Maxine and Nancy are alive and well in SD.
I would say by any objective indicator Trump is doing better for this country than the inexperience Obama did. Obama drew his red lines and then caved because he is a weak, cringing child. His brain was addled from years of pot smoking, and he tried his best to socialize the country.
President Trump is playing the hand he was dealt through years of doing nothing with the North Korean dictators or the imbalance with China in trade. I’d like to see what someone with a mouth as large as yours would do if you could make any bigger decision than what TV dinner to have your mom make for your dinner tonight.
And yet, nothing has been accomplished but force farmers into bankruptcy and legitimizing a dictatorship while undermining US intelligence agencies. If you can show me an indicator, I’d love to point out how it has been trending in those positive directions since before Trump took office. He has done very little except prove that he can grow our deficit even faster than Obama but short of Bush.
Since 2009 was the peak of the Republican Created Recession and that is when Obama era policies began to reverse the decline, let’s start there.
Per Bureau of Labor
Unemployment –
2009 9.9% -2.5% 2.7% ARRA. Min wage $7.25. Jobless benefits extended
2010 9.3% 2.6% 1.5% Obama tax cuts.
2011 8.5% 1.6% 3.0% 26 months of job losses by July. Debt ceiling crisis. Iraq War ended.
2012 7.9% 2.2% 1.7% QE. 10-year rate at 200-year low. Fiscal cliff.
2013 6.7% 1.8% 1.5% Stocks up 30%. Long term=50% of unemployed.
2014 5.6% 2.5% 0.8% Unemployment at 2007 levels.
2015 5.0% 2.9% 0.7% Natural rate
2016 4.7% 1.6% 2.1% Presidential race
2017 4.1% 2.2% 2.1% Dollar weakened
2018 3.9% N.A. N.A. Trump tax cuts.
Obama reduced unemployment by almost 5%, Trump reduced it by just over 1%.
Black Unemployment –
2009 – 14.8
2010 – 16
2011 – 15.8
2012 – 13.8
2013 – 13.1
2014 – 11.3
2015 – 9.6
2016 – 8.4
2017 – 7.5
2018 – 6.5
Obama reduced Black Unemployment by 5%, Trump reduced it by 2%
Hispanic Unemployment –
2009 – 12.8
2010 – 12.9
2011 – 11.1
2012 – 9.6
2013 – 8.3
2014 – 6.4
2015 – 6.2
2016 – 5.9
2017 – 4.9
2018 – 4.4
Again, Obama did more than Trump
GDP Growth by year
2009 – -2.5%
2010 – 2.6%
2011 – 1.6%
2012 – 2.2%
2013 – 1.8%
2014 – 2.5%
2015 – 2.9%
2016 – 1.6%
2017 – 2.2%
2018 – ~3.0%
Deficit by year
2009 – 9.8%
2010 – 8.6%
2011 – 8.3%
2012 – 6.7%
2013 – 4.0%
2014 – 2.7%
2015 – 2.4%
2016 – 3.1%
2017 – 3.4%
2018 – 4.0%
Gotta love how Trump is reversing the Trump of reducing our deficit. Deficits only matter when Democrats are doing it.
If there are any other indicators you want to discuss, please provide them and I’ll gladly look at the data.
Please provide evidence that President Obama had anything to do with the improvements by pointing to specific polices that he helped enact that positively impacted the economy. Correlation does not mean causation.
I’ve responded to your request but the post won’t stay up, much like this one won’t. I don’t understand why it is being blocked because it contains no links.
Read above at 1117 am. That’s what Americans for Prosperity can do for you !
A little late to the party there, Mr. Haggar – though I expect this piece was written sometime last week. The President announced on Sunday (via Twitter – good God, why does that have to be a thing?) that he would postpone the March 1 deadline. A new deadline has not been set, and I’ve read that the major sticking points are mostly intellectual property issues.
Anyway, I think now that we see the damage tariffs can incur, I hope we start to pivot towards more pressure on China via tech – look no further than the (hilarious, to me at least) arrest and detention of Huawei execs. I would love to see more cooperation with India on that front as well – weaken the Chinese ‘sole supplier’ role in the far east and they’ll offer up some of the concessions we’re after.
Who believes Don actually wrote this? It was handed down to him from the national organization. Their communications director sent it to him. At most, Don reviewed it to make certain it maintained as much of his “voice” as possible, but that’s it.
Don is a local figurehead and mouthpiece for hire, nothing more.
That sounds similar to the process the columns and op-eds we see from Noem, Thune, Rounds, Dusty etc. go through.