Paul Krugman: The fraud of American farmers

Donald Trump is unpopular, but he retains the loyalty of some important groups. The most loyal farmers are the American farmers, who represent a tiny minority of the population, but who exert a disproportionate political influence because of our electoral system, which attributes to 3.2 million Iowans as many senators as nearly 40 million Californians. According to a recent survey, 71% of farmers approve of Trump's results, which is slightly lower than previous polls, but still well above the national average.

Yet farmers are suffering financially. Investors worry about a possible recession for the entire economy, but the agricultural recession is already here, with declining incomes, rising crime rates and bankruptcies rising. And the problems of the agricultural economy flow directly from Trump's policies.

This apparent contradiction – Trump inflicts the greatest damage on those who supported him the most – is not an accident. Farmers' past support for Trump was predictable: the demography and culture of rural (white) America is fertile ground for politicians promising to restore traditional society, and especially the traditional racial hierarchy. But the farmers' financial difficulties should have been predictable: while rural America may not like and be wary of cosmopolitan elites, the US agricultural economy is highly dependent on world markets and has inevitably been a major victim of the trade war. of Trumpian.

The question is whether the farmers understood what they were embarking on, if they still understood now that their distress was not going to end so soon and if the economic pain would shake their support for the man. who provoked it.

In a sense, it's not hard to understand why farmers supported Trump. Hostility towards non-white immigrants was at the center of his campaign, and this hostility tends to be stronger in places where there are not many immigrants. Thus, rural America, with its tiny immigrant population, was a receptive audience for its alarmist remarks. More generally, Making America Great Again – which was essentially about getting the clock back on the racial and cultural levels – was a message that played well in places that still tend to think (and politicians tell them) like true America. unlike the major metropolitan areas where most Americans live.

On the other hand, although agricultural countries may be remarkably devoid of ethnic diversity and generally mistrustful of globalists, their economies are in fact deeply integrated and dependent on global markets. On the eve of Trump's trade war, America exported 76% of its cotton production, 55% of its sorghum, half of its soy and 46% of its wheat.

Overall, US agricultural exports account for nearly 40% of the value of agricultural production, compared to about 15% in 1970. Globalization is hurting parts of the US manufacturing industry, with particularly severe effects on some small towns industrial. But the rise of China and the growth of world trade have been good news for farmers.

And here's the thing: it would not have been hard to predict that Trumponomics would be bad for farmers. Trump's desire to wage a trade war was evident from the beginning; Protectionism is at the center of its concerns, with racism and anti-environmentalism being one of its core values. A trade war was to hurt agricultural exports. Has anyone really imagined that China, an economic superpower endowed with fierce nationalism, would not take revenge on US tariffs?

So what were farmers thinking? I imagine that they have left the will to believe to override their judgment. Trump seemed to be their kind of guy. He certainly seemed to share their aversion to the urban elites who, they thought, despised people like them. Then they convinced themselves that he knew what he was doing, that he would win his trade war and that they would be among the winners sharing the spoils.

Even now, many farmers seem to believe that the pain will end one day at a time, that Trump will soon announce an agreement that will restore all the old markets and more.

In short, farmers' support for Trump should be seen as a form of affinity fraud, in which people fall in love with a scammer they imagine to be somebody like them.

And as often in such frauds, the scammer and his associates really despise their marks.

Sonny Perdue, secretary of agriculture, recently let the mask slip into a meeting with farmers who complained about their plight. "What do you call two farmers in a basement?" "A wine cellar."

Trump's remarks about trade with Japan were even more telling. According to a transcript of the White House, Trump complained that while Japan sends us millions of cars, "we are sending them wheat. Corn. (Laughs.) "Do farmers realize that their president views their livelihood as a joke?

So what will happen when the trade war goes on? Do not expect farmers to suddenly exclaim en masse: "Hey, we've done it already!" Real life does not work that way. But, in fact, they have been and they could finally begin to realize it.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics, is an opinion columnist for the New York Times.