On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Rep. Troy Downing (R-MT) said that farmers in his state will “hit crisis mode if we can’t get the government open soon” and give them a bridge until trade deals are reached and “Our farmers are suffering. They’ve got a lot of product that they haven’t been able to move.”
Downing said, “Our farmers, our producers are struggling right now. Not just soybeans, we’ve got the same issue with wheat in Montana. Our farmers are suffering. They’ve got a lot of product that they haven’t been able to move. Also, the other thing is, there’s help on the way. And if you talk to any farmer, they don’t want handouts. They just need to be able to not go bankrupt next year. And, right now, they’re paying for next year’s inputs, they’re starting to invest in next year’s operations, and they still have product that they haven’t traded yet. So, we need to open the government so we can get the USDA to start with these programs again to give them a bridge to actually start to rebuild those. But, ultimately, I think we’ve got a short-term hiccup as we work on these trade deals with other nations. I think that is going to come back. I think that, just like Trump has put so many great deals, like with the U.K. on beef, we have so many good trade deals right there, I think that’s all coming. We just need the government to open so we can give a little bit of short-term relief to our farmers so we can get to the point where we actually start selling it again.”
Downing further stated that, in his state, “I wouldn’t characterize it as a crisis, but I think it starts to hit crisis mode if we can’t get the government open soon, we need to start dealing with these problems soon. We need to get the USDA working, we need to get Secretary Rollins working on getting a bridge to the point where we get those trade deals done and start selling in our international markets.”
Host Blake Burman then said, “I’ve got to imagine there are some folks screaming through the television right now who say, what does this have to do with the government being — opening the government, just tell Trump to dump the tariffs, stop, move off that policy.”
Downing answered, “Well, here’s the thing, is, I think what Trump wants, and I think what the American people want and we all deserve is to have fair trading deals with our trading partners. And I think that’s the end goal. And, as we’ve said from the beginning, a lot of this, you get short-term pain as you’re starting to work with that ambiguity, because, one of the things is, folks want to know where it’s going to fall before they start contracting for next year’s purchases. So, they don’t want to do that with that ambiguity. As soon as that starts to fall, I think everything lays in place.”
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