Or, have US soybean exports recovered since Trump last reigned? Not in volumes.
Source: Colusi, et al. (2024). Marking for trade war in 2018 by author.
2023 exports are below 2017 levels. USDA forecast for 2024/25 marketing year (9/1/24-8/31/25) is 1.875 bn bushels, vs 1.6 bn bushels for 2023/24, or about 17% increase.
Political violence in America
https://jabberwocking.com/political-violence-in-america/
Kevin Drum starts his post noting the utter BS we are hearing from Trump and his MAGA morons:
Over at National Review, Noah Rothman laughingly calls yesterday’s wannabe assassin of Donald Trump “a highly impressionable figure radicalized in the support of progressive causes”:
That might shock the press, but finding a single Trump supporter who is surprised by Sunday’s news would be a struggle. The political media are constantly on the lookout for right-wing violence; but much of the “sustained spate of political violence” to which Americans have been treated over the course of this election cycle has come not from Trump’s supporters but from his opponents
Yes – this is dishonest trash. Kevin notes in detail what utter BS it really is,
I noted how Antoni the other day tried to complain liberals have led to less electricity use as a share of GDP. How BS this claim really was is part of this story:
Natural gas dominates U.S. power generation as AI drives electricity demand
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/natural-gas-dominates-u-s-power-generation-as-ai-drives-electricity-demand/ar-AA1qFQUy?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8d71ba8ae93f43b18d3199932c0d744a&ei=10
Natural gas has become the most preferred source of power generation in the United States as electricity consumption increases rapidly. This has been mainly attributed to the advancement of AI and related technologies, which incorporate vast data centers that use much power to function effectively. In the first half of 2024, U.S. power companies announced plans for new gas-fired capacity at the highest level since 2020, indicating a shift in energy demand. Sierra Club data, as reported by Bloomberg, shows that the use of natural gas has surged as firms seek to meet energy demands. Increased advancements in AI technologies and higher temperatures affect the U.S. electricity grid even more.
The rest of this story is worth the read. But none of these facts will appear on the Trump Twitter page of EJ Antoni – fake Ph.D,
You mentioned Antoni carrying on about interest payments amounting to $1 trillion. This incites repetition of one of my standard analytical responses: Is that a lot?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1tOsW
Interest expense takes 35% of tax revenue. That’s up from prior to Fed rate hikes, but not high historically. The record is just over 50%, during the Reagan administration.
Of course our fake Ph.D. pretended personal income taxes were to be included in the denominator. You know, I know it. Dr. Chinn knows it. Antoni is a liar. But his fan base thinks he’s God.
We should get some broker’s commission from Brazil for this plethora of American magnanimity to their farmers. Don’t they have a Statue of Liberty, er something, that they can gift us??
Didn’t Trump have to give American soybean farmers Federal assistance to cover the income they lost when China started buying Brazilian soybeans instead of ours. Trump is all about making the foreigner pay so someone should ask him how this would exactly work in the case of the soybean market.
An interesting long-term analysis. I knew Brazil was a major player but the fact their exports started exceeding ours even before 2018 surprised me. Of course the stupid Trump trade war did not help.
Beef exports? Brazil.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.statista.com/chart/amp/19122/biggest-exporters-of-beef/
Wood pulp:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332474/global-distribution-of-wood-pulp-exports-by-country/
Beef and wood pulp – rough in the rain forest.
Brazil is not so hot on wheat exports.
Brazil does not even produce that much wheat. Little Argentina makes more than twice as much wheat as Brazil.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSOYBUSDM
Global price of Soybeans
Well the price of soybeans certainly went up after Biden took office – at least for a while. If CoRev were still around, I wonder if he would be gloating about this or would this MAGA troll be too afraid to give Biden credit?
But it does seem the Brazilians took more advantage of the soybean boom that we did.
“Soybeans have become Brazil’s primary agricultural export commodity by volume, accounting for more than 60% of the soybeans grown domestically.”
Total production of soybeans for Brazil is a little more than 110% of total production of soybeans for the US. Which likely means we export less than half our total production. After all – we need soybeans to feed cows etc. Then again Trump and Vance are trying to get us to eat less beef and more dogs and cats.
“The decreased prominence of the U.S. in global soybean markets reflects in part the growth of domestic soybean demand. Soybean crush capacity in the United States has been steadily growing since 2021. According to the USDA’s latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, projected domestic US soybean crush use for the 2023/24 marketing year (which runs from September to August) stands at 2,300 million bushels. This expansion is primarily fueled by the increasing demand for soybean oil, particularly from the renewable diesel sector. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to enforce biofuel blending targets for refiners and gasoline or diesel fuel importers, further driving this demand (see farmdoc daily, November 13, 2023).”
In essence, the US is moving up the vertically integrated value chain by increasing its processing capacity. Which is being driven in part by the Green Agenda. Something else you will not hear on Faux News or read on EJ Antoni’s stupid blog.
Off topic – generally speaking, people are least happy in Republican states, most happy in Democratic states:
https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959
Trump, and Republicans in general, engage in a lot of blaming. Blaming liberals, immigrants, government, scientists. Trump blames Democrats when people try to shoot him.
My guess is that blame appeals most to people who are unhappy. I’m happy to believe that happy people also feel more generous to those less fortunate, so don’t resent social programs as much as unhappy people do and are more welcoming to “other” kinds of people.
I’m also happy to go on and on about the interaction of political preference, political style and policy choices with happiness, but y’all can do that for yourselves.
Incidentally, in a “top five” ranking, depression is highest in Red states, so naturally, the suicide rate is highest in Red states. It’s an unhappy thing.
Similarly, “bottom five” income growth is worst and unemployment highest in mostly Democratic states. The survey only looks at income growth, not level, and we know income levels tend to be higher in Blue states. But this result suggests income growth and unemployment level are not good predictors of happiness.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I hadn’t known any of that before. Your guess certainly seems reasonable to me!
It’s the monkey genes; and the base feeling is fear (but fear will make you unhappy). The monkey who feels that his/her territory is not providing “sufficiently” becomes very territorial and not willing to let others (except the very closest) get anything. Strangers become existential threats that must be fought off any way possible. The monkey that is content and thinks “I got all I need” is much more generous and less territorial (and happy). The predatory capitalists running the GOP have been very good at building and milking this basal fear of “others”. Their case is always about these overblown or imagined fears, and how THEY (GOP) are the only ones who can defend against said threats.
External threats like China or poor people fleeing other countries are pumped up to be existential threats, even though they often are solutions to problems. China is providing us with products at such low prices we could never make them ourselves (unless we dropped the minimum wage to below $4). The poor people fleeing to US have helped us avoid actual labor shortages (with added inflation, etc, etc). Nobody born in the US wants to or need to lower their expectations to base survival doing hard labor outdoors – as long as we let these “low expectation” people in here to do it.
Internal threats like crime are pumped up to be existential threats even though they in reality are a natural part of society – and manageable with good social policies. Absurdly enough the politicians who have real solutions to Crime and other predatory behavior are vilified as enemies – by rich people who made sure that THEIR predatory behavior is legal.
The GOP scam is about keeping people in mortal fear, so they can be manipulated. Unfortunately if the democrats try to explain that there is nothing to fear (but fear itself) the scared sheep are basically just pushed further into the scam that only the GOP can save them. So democrats are forced to come up with “better” (less destructive) solutions to these pretend problems – rather than pull the curtains on these moronic fear narratives.
The Chinese tariffs on soybeans were in retaliation for US tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump has been out of office for close to four years. Shouldn’t we call these the Biden tariffs? Biden’s State Department seems to full of Sino Hawks.
joseph: I guess so, if I’d called them “Trump tariffs”. I call them Section 301 tariffs, myself.
Well, you did label your chart Trump’s Trade War Begins. You could also put a line indicating Biden’s Trade War Continues.
Are you campaigning for the racist in chief or what?
If Biden cancelled the tariffs, and lost an election to donald trump because many American voters thought Biden was “weak” on China, you would feel the export gains were worth another 4 years of trump??
When Joseph ceases his chirping over our host’s labeling, he might find this interesting:
Farmers voice concern over possible tariffs
Soybean growers fear trade war and straining of ties between US and China
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202409/04/WS66d7c053a3108f29c1fca08c.html
In 2018, the Trump administration enacted import tariffs ranging between 10 percent and 50 percent on approximately $283 billion of US imports. As a countermeasure, China imposed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of US goods in 2018, including pork and soybeans. This cost US agricultural producers around $27 billion in lost export revenue from 2018 to 2019, the USDA found. Around 95 percent was due to the trade war with China.
US farmers were given $61 billion worth of bailouts to offset the losses after US agricultural exports fell dramatically between 2018 and 2020, the Financial Times reported.
By 2019, a trade agreement was reached between the US and China steadying the industry.
Gackle said the trade war had “a big impact on US soybean producers, but we came back in phase one, and the administration and China worked together to try and build back some of that trade relationship and it happened”.
In a study about why tariffs hurt working people in the US by the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, or PIIE, the authors Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely argue that tariffs could actually end up stinging US families, farmers and exporters the most.
“Economists have long understood that tariffs burden domestic purchasers of imported goods because imports are the difference between domestic demand and domestic supply, a tariff affects both sides of the market,” according to the study.
Big oil companies defeat US consumer lawsuit over production, prices
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/big-oil-companies-defeat-us-consumer-lawsuit-over-production-prices/ar-AA1qFLZf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=37a125b356564790915a17850a9ba50b&ei=7
(Reuters) -Several oil companies including Exxon Mobil and Chevron defeated an appeal on Monday by consumers who accused them of colluding with former U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia and Saudi Arabia to cut oil production, boosting prices at the pump. In a 3-0 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said two dozen consumers could not pursue class action claims because they concerned political questions and the oil-producing policies of foreign countries. The court also found a lack of proof that the oil companies violated antitrust law by conspiring to raise prices. Other defendants included Devon Energy, Energy Transfer LP, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips 66, Continental Resources, Hilcorp Energy and the American Petroleum Institute.
It’s a shame the judges tossed this out as it would be of interest whether Trump fostered such an anti-competitive move to jack uo oil prices. Of course Steven Koptis is on record that such collusion is AOK with him.
Moses: “If Biden cancelled the tariffs, and lost an election to donald trump because many American voters thought Biden was “weak” on China, you would feel the export gains were worth another 4 years of trump??”
So what you are saying is that Trump has bad tariff policies because he is stupid, but Biden has bad tariff policies which he is smart enough to know are stupid but needs to pander for votes from the rubes.
I’m not sure which is worse but I think it is dishonest to rant about Trump’s stupidity when Biden is doing the same.
Could you PLEASE got off this stupid rant of yours. I provided a useful article on this article. Stop chirping and start reading. DAMN!
I think it’s stupid not to understand the difference between instituting tariffs and removing them. The damage of spilled milk cannot be reversed by getting the glass upright again. I also think it is stupid to look at “tariffs” as a singular uniform instrument that can be labelled good/bad or yes/no.
pgl, the article you linked says “The Biden administration has kept most of his predecessor’s levies in place, and in May, raised some others on an additional $18 billion in Chinese imports, such as electric vehicles and semiconductors.”
Did you even read your own article? It’s rather bizarre to complain about Trump’s tariffs starting in 2018 and give a pass to Biden for not just continuing the tariffs but increasing them.