AGRICULTURE/EU/TARIFFS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “After the U.S. slapped tariffs on European steel and aluminum in June, Europe hit back with a tax that, among other things, made American kidney beans 25% more expensive in Europe. Now, Cindy Brown is running out of room to store kidney beans. One-ton bags of them cover the floors in her cavernous warehouses. Smaller sacks are piled on wood-pallet shelves. Beans fill tall steel bins that dot the grounds. Chippewa Valley Bean Co. had been on track to ship to Europe 60% of its beans traded internationally this year, worth $25 million. Now, ‘we’re just sitting on our hands,’ said Ms. Brown, president of the family company. Agricultural businesses across the U.S. are reeling from retaliatory tariffs sparked by President Donald Trump’s global trade offensive—levies imposed on a wide range of American goods from soybeans and pork to ginseng and cranberries. The duties from trading partners including China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union have deepened a downturn that was already sapping incomes in the U.S. Farm Belt…The Trump administration has taken steps to soothe the nerves of American farmers, promising $12 billion in emergency aid to support producers of commodities such as soybeans, wheat, sorghum and pork. It isn’t known what, if any, benefit processors such as Chippewa Valley and other businesses along the supply chain will see from the aid.”
–Jesse Newman, “Kidney Beans Piled to the Rafters: Tariffs Are Biting in Farm Country,” The Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2018 10:38 am