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President Trump’s trade wars and shooting wars help provide clarity. Oil is killing us. It keeps us stuck in a permanent war in the Middle East. The trade war with China ruined soy export markets upon which Iowa producers had become dependent. We found that when our beans got too expensive the Chinese were ready to plow up the Brazilian rain forest.
Climate change will consume us sooner or later unless we cut back on burning fossil fuels. That is no hoax. We have been in a low-grade war around the Persian Gulf for a half century purely because of oil. The Saudis who attacked us 25 years ago did so because of our presence in the Middle East motivated almost entirely by our addiction to oil. The Iranians hate us because we tried to run their country for cheap oil. Religion is a means to get people to fight over money, which is oil.
At one time this was a selling point for biofuels, that they would deliver us from evil. They did not. Neither did fracking in North Dakota. The US is a net exporter of oil and gas. Still, we are entangled in conflict among the Shiites, Sunnis, Jews and Christians so we can keep gasoline under $3 per gallon.
Oil causes snowpack to melt and deprives the Southwest of water. It holds beef prices high. Like any addiction, you know it’s bad for you but you must have it. Now gasoline is on its way to $5 per gallon. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf are bottled up by the USA, Israel, Iran, Houthi rebels and the Saudis, to name a few. It seems bound to stay that way indefinitely, so long as everyone at the party has a decent supply of missiles and drones.
Maybe we can kick our jones with $5 gasoline.
This week, Trump said he would welcome Chinese electrical vehicle manufacturing in the United States. That would be an off-ramp for the American motorist — a $15,000 electric car that drives like a dream. That would take care of oil, and ethanol. Canada is inviting the Chinese in to manufacture.
We are finding out at the same time that an export-based ag economy is vulnerable. Nearly all Iowa is under the disc so we can feed the Asian soy and pork markets with cheap product. A third of Iowa farmers have been under constant stress since we opened trade with Beijing. We have been ordered to feed the world markets with commodities. That whole scheme has not worked out especially well for Rembrandt or Rolfe, and the Raccoon River is a mess.
So maybe it was good that Trump blew up our export trade. We’re growing about a third too much row crops anyhow. We would not need to burn corn if we grew less. We would not soil ourselves with every Trump tariff if we did not live for exports. It has been suggested that first we should feed Iowa, which imports more than 80% of its food, before we feed the world.
We lose soil faster than it can be replenished. A warming climate will challenge Iowa producers. Nature will reorder markets and land use. We will not be able to serve the world if we plunder the resource. The tariffs are a disruptive way to remind us of our vulnerabilities — we cannot grow corn without Canadian potash.
Our shooting war rains terror on our allies and enemies, while demonstrating we cannot control production, distribution or price. Sheep eventually come in from the rain when they get wet enough. Gasoline over $5 could get us to look at those cheap Chinese cars. Cheap soy and pork may lead us to more sustainable and prosperous ag enterprises. We used to graze more cattle in Iowa on pasture. It can be done.
President Trump put Iowa Republican senate candidate Ashley Hinson in a pickle when he promised everybody a $5,000 “dividend” if the GOP maintains control of Congress. Hinson could not say that spending $1.2 trillion would be fiscally irresponsible. She had to say that she certainly will consider it, study it, look into it, think about it. Which makes her sound like a sycophant for a president who does incredibly foolish things.
She advertises that Trump & Co. cut taxes to save Iowa families thousands of dollars. Wages have not kept pace with inflation — the tax savings was spent at the gasoline pump and on higher grocery bills thanks to tariffs.
Once upon a time, conservatives would recoil at the notion of a $1.2 trillion bribe that adds to a $40 trillion debt. Today, Iowa’s top Republican candidate says she will think about larding it on. Democrats are the ones calling for fiscal restraint. Josh Turek may be more conservative than Hinson. He is not yet tainted by Washington.
With elections looming, it was serendipitous for Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden to show up in Iowa talking about busting up the fertilizer trust. He convened with the Iowa Corn Growers and the leading Republican politicians to cuss the few fertilizer companies serving Iowa. They complain that the lack of competition allows the cartel to command whatever price.
You could almost hear echoes from the discussions about meatpacking. They fix prices. They fix wages. They charge an arm and a leg for hamburger because they can, and there are so few of them that they can starve out the independents. They get fined occasionally but keep on with their familiar ways. Politicians would like you to think they are doing something about it. They perpetuate the system.
In fact, the war in the Middle East actually serves the fertilizer cartel by limiting world supply. In Des Moines, the suits told the farmers to gather evidence, because, by gum, we are getting ready to really do something!
Holding your breath is not advised.
The fertilizer companies are going to get theirs no matter what the deputy secretary is telling the corn growers. Farmers are getting gouged by Trump’s war. Anti-trust talk is just that. Taking on fertilizer means taking on the Kochs and the petrochemical industry from here to Houston. When pigs fly.
Nate Willems’s campaign for attorney general took on some life when the ethanol company Poet threatened in a letter to sue the Democrat for defamation over some TV ads. Willems claims in the ad that Attorney General Brenna Bird, a Republican, should have done more when environmental violations occurred at Poet’s facility in Shell Rock.
The company was fined $10,000 by the Department of Natural Resources. Poet said it rectified the matter. Poet says the ad suggests falsely that a donation to Bird from the company CEO was a “bribe.” Bird joined in, calling the ad dishonest.
Heretofore Willems had been talking almost exclusively about wage theft and nobody was paying attention. All the sudden he becomes a champion of the environment under assault by the Republican Establishment. If Bird and Poet had ignored the ad Willems probably would have run out of money and steam. Willems now gains attention from conservative property-rights interests who oppose CO2 pipelines and ethanol subsidies. Bird weds herself to ethanol, at odds with her own base.
Threats from big corporations against an underdog will backfire. Suing Nate Willems would make his day and do nothing but cost Poet money. Poet should make a public argument about why Willems is wrong. We would be happy to publish their letter. That is not how our politics works anymore. Intimidation through litigation — lawfare, they call it, and the Iowa Legislature was supposed to have put a halt to it — won’t work. If Poet had not violated our environmental code, there would have been no basis for the Willems ad at all. This is a legitimate public issue.
Willems will get votes he otherwise would never have because of threats made by an ethanol company. If Bird loses, it will be by her own sword with this issue.
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