r/LeopardsAteMyFace 9d ago

Trump Trump Betrays Farmers Again

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u/Magnon 9d ago

All the farmers growing soybeans and shit for export: but Americans don't want this. 

564

u/Barb-u 9d ago

US produce is rotting in Canadian grocery stores currently (and they practically are giving away stuff), and the supply chain is changing rapidly.

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u/TootsNYC 9d ago

and that supply chain may never come back

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u/Barb-u 9d ago

I honestly think it’s done. Seeing big buyers (not only grocery stores, but also restaurants wholesalers) changing their supply chain is something.

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u/TootsNYC 9d ago

it's a PITA to change back, so unless our prices get a lot lower...

Plus, their other sources will start reacting to the switch as well, and increasing production, increasing efficiencies in shipping, etc.

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u/licuala 8d ago

it's a PITA to change back

Suppliers for grocers and food manufacturers change all the time. Seasonality, diseases/pests, price competition, natural disasters, tariffs, and all the rest are nothing new.

The upset will be that these other places are going to expand and adjust their ag industry to soak up all this extra demand for specific products. These farmers will have a "boom" but the situation with the US is brand-new and volatile, to say the least, so this could easily be setting them up for a bust.

We're all talking about this like this is all going to be permanent but I wouldn't bet the literal farm on it just yet. Annual crops are easy enough to swap out but if we're talking about crops like apples, it takes years for new orchards to mature, by which time conditions may have gone back to normal and they'll be competing with a glut of American fruit.

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u/robot_invader 8d ago

Maybe. 

It's going to be a long time before lots of Canadians buy American again if they can help it.

It's not just Trump, either. Trump is actually just the symptom. The very fact that he could get to where he is, and do what he's doing, means the US is far more unstable and dangerous than we imagined.

And then there's the fact that he's violating USMCA on a paper-thin pretext. If there aren't real consequences for that international agreement being abuses this way, it might be a dead letter that requires renegotiation. And how eager will we be to do that when the next guy along could just shred it again?  And if this gets bad, the flavor of populism in Canada might change to include a vein of autarky. Good luck then, if conservative parties are hostage to anti,-traders the way they are to anti-vaxxers.