Summary
Trump’s move to defund USAID is causing unintended consequences for American farmers and businesses.
The Washington Post reports that USAID purchases billions in U.S. agricultural products, with American farms supplying 41% of its food aid.
The funding freeze has already halted $340 million in food shipments, leaving tons of wheat stranded in Houston.
Experts warn this decision directly harms American jobs and businesses, as much of USAID’s aid is administered through U.S.-based organizations employing American workers.
They write these stories like this isn’t the result he is looking for. The point is to crash, not rebuild; nothing the Trump administration is doing is geared to help, rebuild, or make America great. That’s not how they make money. The more I see, the more I hear the more I am convinced the whole point is to destabilize and rebuild to get rid of that pesky constitution.
Maybe I am just angry or doomsaying, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look that way, and to make matters even worse, people just can’t wrap their heads around the whole organized minority rules over the unorganized majority thing.
They write these stories like this isn’t the result he is looking for. The point is to crash, not rebuild;
I’m noticing a slightly different pattern with these actions. I don’t think trump and his cronies were actually seeking to hurt farmers, but something else.
- hurt everyone temporary to see who screams.
- Those that scream that are opponents, continue to deny them the government benefit
- Those that are allies, extract concessions and/or pledges of fealty before returning the same benefit they had before.
- For those that don’t scream, or don’t scream loud enough, simply pocket the benefit for himself and his own goals.
nothing the Trump administration is doing is geared to help, rebuild, or make America great.
Agreed.
Basically pull all the cables and see what breaks that you care about.
Then just fix that.
Basically pull all the cables and see what breaks that you care about.
Then just fix that.
Yes. In IT we call this the “scream test”. This feels like that with added corruption.
Something like almost 80% of farmers voted Trump. Those leopards are eating good
Those leopards are eating good
The leopards are becoming obese now, WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LEOPARDS
Unfortunately, we won’t be in the coming months.
They’ll stand by their vote while blaming democrats for the dei hires responsible for their farms getting shut down.
Ah yes, the Brexiters! Quite an overlap of talking points too. Minus the healthcare, there’s non to speak of in US.
Almost like they don’t know what the purpose of government is…
And almost like they don’t realize that large portions of the US economy is highly dependent on the US’s interventionalist stance.
It’s like every fucking kid learns in history class. The biggest beneficiary of the US Marshall plan was the US - the US is constantly making international decisions that drive more business to the US… those decisions usually start as deficits driving aide abroad and then form strong economic and diplomatic bonds that benefit everyone.
Trump is torpedoing the US’s relationships abroad and by doing so the US economy.
China can pick it up. :/
This is the actual “liberal world order” that Conservatives want to dismantle. It’s one created by the US providing needed assistance while growing itself. The view that a rising tide lifts all ships.
Donald Trump may have thought that defunding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would only hurt foreigners – but it turns out he could actually be mistaken.
😮
“May have thought” - that would be to strong for him. Thinking has never been his strong point. He reacts to what people around him tell him. He picks up ideas at random and turns them into executive orders.
Right, he probably only “may have thought” what Musk told him to do, which was to hurt USAID for investigating Starlink+Russia
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But they just wanted to have someone to punch down on the trans, the brown people, and force everyone to go to their church, that’s all!
Mate, the orange halfwit has just flooded a huge number of farms in California. They’re still gonna vote for him.
I mean, if they vote for Democrats, they might turn gay or woke.
“gambit”
Sure, let’s call it that.
It’s the normalization blues
Surely they’ll still buy those goods and give them to Americans. They aren’t just dissolving programs and making money disappear, couldn’t be.
Yeah, they couldn’t possibly be cruel or incompetent, not them!
According to AOC this whole cutting nonsense is because they need to come up with up to 4 billion dollars to get the votes to pass their new tax reduction plan for the rich.
Seriously, only people permanently stuck in adolescence with bullshit Libertarian notions about government believe that you can BREAK government and things will turn out well.
Only a dumbfuck Randroid type (or maybe the random leftist veering on wrapping all the way around the horseshoe) thinks that burning it all down is going to lead to better things…it’s easy if you are totally ignorant to think that “government doesn’t do anything for ME” as an actual thing you believe.
Trump: “If food prices are so high, what if we just… keep all the food here? That will bring them down, right?”
Dustbowl 2025, fuck yeah! Bringing back the classics!
(Farmers won’t or can’t spend money to plant -> too many fallow fields -> giant walls of airborne topsoil)
Murph!
The Washington Post reports that USAID purchases billions in U.S. agricultural products, with American farms supplying 41% of its food aid.
I did not know this myself.
Basically all of foreign “giving” by America is done by purchasing American goods and giving them in exchange for goodwill, soft power, regional stability, favorable trade deals, or other political capital.
Many Americans don’t understand any of that and think their tax money is going in the form of a check to people who don’t care and don’t give us anything in exchange. And it’s not like this is a secret, it’s just kinda gauche for the government to explicitly state it
That’s the thing about how headlines mislead. When they say, “US sends $x in aide or weapons,” what they really mean is that the US is subsidizing an American lobby group. Not to say that is bad thing, just that it gives the wrong impression.
Similarly, weapon shipments to Israel and Ukraine are subsidies of American weapons manufacturers.
I wonder which party farmers and defense contractors tend to vote for?
A fair amount of those weapons needed to be used anyway as well. This gets them used, and builds up a fresher stockpile creating/maintaining jobs.
They didn’t need to be used. They could have been destroyed instead.
Well sure, and to commit genocide I’d rather they have been destroyed, but in the case of Ukraine, it’s better than destroying them.
Yeah, I agree for Ukraine.
Not only is it better to give them to Ukraine than to just destroy them, it also lets American generals and weapons manufacturers learn how they work in a real combat situation, and in conditions they may not have much experience with.
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American generals and weapons manufacturers have some experience with desert warfare. But, Ukraine gives them a chance to see how their systems do in sub-zero weather in winter. They also get to see how their systems do against a near-peer enemy, vs. how they do against guerillas and militias.
The war in Ukraine is a very smart “investment” for the American military and for American military companies. They get to learn lessons while not having any American soldiers at risk, and while massively damaging an enemy like Russia.
Giving them to Israel is bullshit though. Not only is Israel in the midst of an ethnic cleansing campaign, there also aren’t many useful lessons to be learned by another campaign of smashing civilians, guerillas and militias in a desert.
aren’t many useful lessons to be learned by another campaign of smashing civilians, guerillas and militias in a desert.
Just got me laughing thinking of a multi million dollar munition being shot at civilians with no defences (okay not that part, but the next part) and the military contractors being like, yep, the missile works when there’s (edit: zero) counter measures to stop it, in conditions we’ve tested a hundred times before in combat. Guess we don’t learn anything this time!
Yeah, sometimes you have to laugh so you don’t cry.
Not only that, the dollar amount of the aid is the cost for replacements, not the cost of the old stock. Zelensky said the current value of the stocks they have received is only a fraction of what the US has said they actually donated in aid.
