Advocates for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on ag policy clashed over trade, immigration and tax issues during an informal debate Monday.
“The four years of the Trump presidency was defined by chaos and uncertainty for the farm economy and the outlook for a second term would be even more severe," asserted Rod Snyder, a Democrat who recently stepped down as director of EPA’s first Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
But Kip Tom, who’s leading the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition, used the forum sponsored by the Farm Foundation to attack the Biden-Harris administration for its regulatory agenda and what he said was inaction on trade policy.
Tom, an Indiana farmer who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations food and agriculture programs during the Trump administration, said overregulation has been the driving force behind recent food inflation, not price manipulation by big food companies.
“We have collapsing farm incomes. We've got a growing trade deficit. We have the tax policies which are a threat to our industry. We have the overreach of some agencies, agencies that should be working to help us bring these new innovations to market, yet they slow us down,” he said.
Repeating the attack on Biden’s trade policy, Tom said, “We're going to deal with several years of surplus here. We're going to deal with several years of lower farm income, all because of lack of trade under the Biden-Harris administration.”
Snyder repeatedly brought up Trump’s trade war with China, saying it cost farmers $29 billion in 2018 and 2019 alone while “undermining markets that took decades for our farmers to build.”
Snyder noted that Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board tariffs of up to 20% on imports and to raise tariffs to as much as 60% on China. Snyder said the retaliation that would result would fall on farmers, hurting their exports and raising the cost of inputs. “That is not a sustainable outcome. … I just think it's bad, bad news.’
Snyder also said Trump’s threat to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants threatened to exacerbate ag labor shortages. “President Trump would prefer to throw our country's farms and food system into chaos, rather than forge a meaningful solution to the decades-long problem,” Snyder said.
Snyder accused Trump of leaving U.S. biofuel policy in “disarray” in part by granting small refinery waivers that significantly reduced the amount of biofuels that had to be used under the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Snyder also pushed back on Tom’s criticism of Harris’ proposals to stop price gouging by food companies. “We’re not talking about food price caps… we’re talking about companies that have demonstrated they’re willing to break the law in times of a crisis,” Snyder said.
Defending Trump’s trade policy, Tom noted that Trump negotiated reductions to trade barriers imposed by Japan and other countries. Tom also pointed out that Biden had left in place key tariffs that Trump had imposed. “We've had no trade deals under the Harris administration, none,” Tom said.
In an apparent allusion to Trump’s payments to farmers after starting the trade war with China, Tom said, “He took care of us before, when he [raised tariffs] originally, and then he’ll take care of us this time, too.”
On tax policy, Tom raised concerns about the estate tax and preserving stepped-up basis for inherited assets. Stepped-up basis means that the capital gain on an inherited asset is calculated from the date that the original owner died, rather than when he or she acquired the property. Under current law, heirs don't owe taxes until the assets are sold.
"We’ve got to make sure we have tax policy that allows farmers to continue in the future," Tom said.
Snyder downplayed benefits to farmers of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and noted that extending provisions that expire next year, including a doubling of the estate tax exemption, would cost more than $4 trillion over 10 years.
"I certainly don’t think it’s average farmers and ranchers across the United states that are seeing the most benefit from" the TCJA, Snyder said.
Tom repeatedly came back to the issue of regulations, saying at one point that regulations issued under the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act needed to be rolled back.
Tom downplayed the deportation threat, saying he had recently met with poultry producers and processors who insisted they relied on workers who were in the country legally. “So, I'm not worried about them being raided and losing their workforce, but we do have an illegal immigration problem that needs to be solved,” he said.
Tom also stressed the importance of the H-2A program, which allows farms to import workers for temporary work.
One issue that didn’t come up directly was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that Trump has embraced his effort to address a childhood health crisis that Kennedy blames in part on the food industry and agriculture.
Still, Tom brought up the issue of ultraprocesssed foods, saying at one point, “There’s no question that ultraprocessed foods are probably things we shouldn’t be buying.”
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