this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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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.

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[–] SarcasticMan@lemmy.world 186 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

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.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 101 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

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.

  1. hurt everyone temporary to see who screams.
  2. Those that scream that are opponents, continue to deny them the government benefit
  3. Those that are allies, extract concessions and/or pledges of fealty before returning the same benefit they had before.
  4. 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.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 28 points 2 weeks ago

Demarcating between enemies and allies (coerced or otherwise) is most definitely a primary goal.

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[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

And on the way down, connected rich people have already shorted select industries' stocks, then will buy in bigtime after the crash to profit on the long way back up.

The rich get richer.

EDIT: the way back up won't be so long, as theh recovery will be aided by big bailouts (or bail-ins) at the taxpayers' expense. So we'll get screwed not one, not two, but THREE ways.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 22 points 2 weeks ago

Capital leverages instability to transfer wealth to itself from the working class.

Having control over the levers of chaos means that they can not only leverage instability whenever and however they want, they are also singularly able to predict when the chaos will subside. This increases their economic power exponentially.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 weeks ago

That's basically what all the instability of the early 20th century was all about. On one end of the spectrum, you had communists and socialist looking at the old order and then reacting by destroying it all. On the other end of the political spectrum, you had the far right movements of the Nazis in Germany who saw the writing on the wall with the socialist wave moving in and instead wanted to create a counter movement to all the socially minded. The wealthy capitalists, millionaires, monarchs and historic aristocracy were more than willing to back the far right conservative movements who were willing to work with them than to let communists in who clearly just wanted to get rid of all the old wealthy class.

The same thing is happening all over again. Different playing field, new dynamics but still the same old ball game. Modern wealth can't work with the current system and they know things have to change so its better to back the far right than to let any kind of social democratic system take over. They'd rather destroy everything because they know that whoever is first to build whatever that remains will be the new kings and rulers of the future. Rather than accommodate and grow in any democratic system, they'd rather watch the world burn and then take over the masses who will crawl out of the ashes.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Destabilization is 100% the point. Create problems, sell solutions. Make the people reliant on the government for everything so they fully own and control you.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 weeks ago

the deep fucking irony of who's always complaining about welfare queens…

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 weeks ago

destabilize and rebuild

destroy and cash-out.

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[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 140 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Something like almost 80% of farmers voted Trump. Those leopards are eating good

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 44 points 2 weeks ago

Those leopards are eating good

The leopards are becoming obese now, WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LEOPARDS

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, we won't be in the coming months.

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[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

They’ll stand by their vote while blaming democrats for the dei hires responsible for their farms getting shut down.

[–] Paddzr@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

Ah yes, the Brexiters! Quite an overlap of talking points too. Minus the healthcare, there's non to speak of in US.

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 90 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I hope every farmer who voted for Trump loses their farm. Literally.

[–] Guy6758@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Seriously fuck these people its obvious what Trump is about. He did this the first time he was in office

[–] BlindFrog@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details?pubid=102979

A 2022 US dept of agriculture publication, the overview: "This report provides a detailed look at the impact of retaliatory [2018] tariffs by State and commodity and estimates the direct export losses associated with the trade conflict." Added 2018 for context

Takes two clicks to get to the summary. I can't tell what the US even won out of the war, but looks like we lost damn bigly. And are pushing the same tarrifs again 💀

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[–] slingstone@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

I think that would affect the rest of us, because that means family farms might be taken over by corporations, which is already a huge problem. Because of the downstream effects on the nation as a whole, I sincerely hope they learn their damned lesson.

Do they deserve to lose everything for their stupidity? Sure. Do the rest of us deserve to pay for their stupidity with an increasingly corporatized or weakened agricultural base? No.

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Most small farms die when the next family member in line to take over doesn’t want to do it. This is personal for me because my father was a farmer and died when I was a teenager. My family now just rent out the land we own and I ended up not becoming a farmer because I don’t want to die young like he did. Farming is a stressful as hell job and it’s getting more expensive to even get into it anymore unless you got investors or inherit everything like my father did. If you don’t, then you’ll be in debt forever.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 69 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Almost like they don't know what the purpose of government is...

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 11 points 2 weeks ago

Britain had to fuck up and destabilize a shitload of countries to build its empire. China is being handed it's global dominance on a silver platter due to the fact that the US several other Western nations are too far up their own white supremacist libertarian assholes to actually fix shit.

I mean Milei in Argentina is such an unmitigated disaster it isn't funny, but they praise him like he is somehow uplifting the country when now 7 out of 10 Argentinian children are living in poverty.

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[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The purpose of government is to funnel taxpayer money into the hands of the rich, and to enforce laws against the poor, duh.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

The purpose of the government is to ensure nobody can say "woke" stuff, apparently.

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[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 54 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

😮

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

"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.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

Right, he probably only "may have thought" what Musk told him to do, which was to hurt USAID for investigating Starlink+Russia

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 42 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

"gambit"

Sure, let's call it that.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The famous chess move: king's gambit. Sacrifice your king for victory. Wait a minute . . .

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[–] 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world 41 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Farmers are going to get hammered with retaliatory tariffs on exports too. Time for them to find out I guess.

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[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 36 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Well, it's what they voted for in their blind hatred of everything that made America great.

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Mate, the orange halfwit has just flooded a huge number of farms in California. They're still gonna vote for him.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 19 points 2 weeks ago

I don't know if him opening the dams flooded any farms, but come summertime, they're going to be hurting as the reservoirs empty out long before they should have.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean, if they vote for Democrats, they might turn gay or woke.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 14 points 2 weeks ago
[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 36 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

... "government doesn't do anything for ME" as an actual thing you believe.

This happens because people take completely for granted all of the things government quietly does for them.

It's kind of the same as "Why do we even have an IT department? Everything works, what are they even doing?"

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Such an apt analogy - this actually happens all the time in corporations. IT tends to just get treated as a cost center, most especially if everything is running smoothly. Stupid people at companies will often just look at the price of that and think it's time to fuck with it...

It's almost the same thing with vaccines. A whole lot of dumbasses think vaccines "never did them no good", because vaccines are a victim of their own success, and most people alive today have not really seen how bad it can get without them [1].

Idiots can then try to pin the state of health we have, largely thanks to vaccines, on other things like septic systems, "eating healthy", etc...

[1] I've anecdotally noticed that for the most part, you didn't see older generations going for that anti-vax shit. It seems to have started with some (younger) boomers, a lot of Gen-Xers and on down. But again, that's because it's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing. Some of the older people (like Greatest Generation) saw how life can be incredibly cruel w/o vaccines...sadly, all that wisdom is dying out and our education system sucks, so this wisdom was not passed on to enough people. Critical thinking is probably as bad as ever, and we are probably on the verge of FAFO...

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 weeks ago

Everyone knows international aid is to support local economies

I don’t think anything is backfiring

[–] Kompressor@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I had some nutjob on a local group tell me that Trump has removed federal taxes as if I and everyone else can't clearly see that we're still paying the same federal taxes on my paystubs. I can't believe how brainwashed some people have become.

Also tangentially related but I filled out my tax return today and owe a lot more this year thanks to his bullshit 2018 tax bill that capped SALT deductions, removed the child tax credit, and only gave temporary cuts to people who aren't in the 1%. I can only imagine that his supporters are either retired, unemployed, or on social security to also not realize how much more he's forcing us to pay to the government.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, they couldn't possibly be cruel or incompetent, not them!

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Trump: "If food prices are so high, what if we just... keep all the food here? That will bring them down, right?"

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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)

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

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?

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[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

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