Trump tries to sell himself as the farm-subsidy champion
Timothy P. Carney
COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA — Former President Donald Trump came to this city on the Missouri River to tell the farmers of Iowa that they should vote for him because of all the money he has given to agribusiness.
The crowd at the Mid-American Center, however, seemed to be mostly Nebraskans and included almost no farmers. They loved Trump but had no interest in his ag-subsidy quid-pro-quo talk.
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Trump was explicitly transactional in his talk of being pro-Iowa and pro-farmer. First, he laid it on thick that he defended Iowa’s status as the first nominating contest in the country. Only later, when the mention of Nebraska elicited the loudest roar of his speech to that point, did he realize his crowd was mostly from across the river.
To make the case he was the most farmer-friendly president, Trump bragged about giving a $28 billion bailout to farmers to make up for harms done by his trade war with China. He also explicitly tied that aid to his 2024 Iowa caucus hopes. “A few months ago, they were talking about ‘Do you think he’ll win Iowa?’ I said, ‘How the hell can you not? I gave the farmers $28 billion. How the hell do you lose?’”
Trump also went on at length about ethanol, a heavily subsidized biofuel. His more than a dozen mentions of ethanol never got more than the tiniest applause. Specifically, he attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for opposing the Renewable Fuel Standard, a federal law that forces refineries to blend ethanol with their gasoline.
“Every Iowan needs to know that Ron ‘DeSanctis’ totally despises Iowa ethanol, and ethanol generally. … He was a congressman, and he was fighting for years to kill every single job supported by this very important industry. Ending the Renewable Fuel Standard was one of his top priorities — as a member of Congress, he wanted to end it.”
“And if he had his way, the entire economy of Iowa would absolutely collapse because it would collapse if he did that, to say, just slandered the ethanol mandate as, quote, socialism.”
This scripted line was supposed to draw boos, but it drew only silence.
Trump also attacked DeSantis for vetoing a $100 million handout to farmers for not selling to developers. This is welfare for farmers that exacerbates America’s housing shortage.
I interviewed a dozen or more attendees before Trump took the stage and asked them all which issues mattered the most. Not a single attendee cited farm subsidies, ethanol policy, or ag policy at all.
After the rally, Leslie McPeck, an Omaha woman in her 60s, was leaving the rally with a John Deere-colored “Farmers for Trump” cap. “Oh, I’m not a farmer,” she explained to me. “They were just giving out the hats.”
What did she think of Trump’s promises to subsidize Iowa farmers because they vote for him? “I wasn’t really here to hear about that.”
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Jeff Fenn, a retiree from Omaha also in his 60s, loved Trump’s speech. When I asked him about Trump’s support for the Renewable Fuel Standard, Fenn said he supports Trump because “The Left wants everything to be green energy.”
Sure enough, during his remarks, Trump’s talk of renewable fuels met with approximately zero applause. His energy riff finally earned applause when he said, “Drill, baby, drill.”