Summary

Trump’s new tariffs—10% across the board plus duties on 60 countries—threaten U.S. farmers already strained by high inflation, rising loan rates, and falling crop prices.

Unlike 2018, today’s farm economy offers less cushion, with depleted bailout funds and federal budget constraints limiting relief.

While herbicides and fertilizers are exempt, farmers fear retaliatory tariffs and export losses.

Farm groups and lawmakers urge moderation, prompting USDA to launch new trade initiatives. Still, widespread USDA staff cuts and uncertain support leave many farmers anxious, risking political fallout in key red states.

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Once everyone is dead who lived through it, and everyone who grew up on their stories, history is effectively lost to everyone but historians. I’ve seen it happening in my own lifetime.

    It’s not like we spent a lot of energy making sure our kids understand WW2 lore. It’s presumed irrelevant to their lives so it’s presented as “how we got here” not “this will happen to you.” Hell, we beat the Nazis, right? The subtle shit like hiring them into our countries or displacing an entire people to give (or restore, however you want to look at it but after 100 years I figure everyone is gone who has any kind of claim to the land and that’s that) Jews a homeland—that stuff barely gets a mention.

    Point is, I don’t think it’s Americans alone, and I don’t think it’s this generation in particular. The far right is rising globally. We’ve all forgotten. America, as the “sole superpower” might be the worst case, but it’s happening everywhere. And we’re going to create generations of misery because we have to learn the lesson again.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Point is, I don’t think it’s Americans alone, and I don’t think it’s this generation in particular. The far right is rising globally. We’ve all forgotten.

      I think it’s human nature. Education is supposed to combat that, but it’s slow and imperfect, and of course the reactionaries among us fight that tooth and nail, most especially if they suspect children will come out of that education changed somehow. But changing minds is the very point. If you believe the same things at the end of education that you believed beforehand, well, then, that’s a failed education.

      It’s not about indoctrination - that’s just the reactionaries projecting. They believe the purpose of education is to make children believe the exact same things their parents and religious clerics believe.

      I think humans not only forget their history, but also the very bedrock of science. We have people still litigating evolution or a spherical Earth, FFS. And we have people rejecting things like measles vaccines because they didn’t see massive misery and death in their own lifetimes. Like you said, there is not enough people being told: without the proper precautions, this could happen to YOU. Or YOUR KIDS. It’s something that happened to prior generations or people that are old (so what do they know about life, lol?).

      • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        Pearl Harbor was the real turning point. Also leadership wanted to support the allies but had to get the public on board. The tide started to turn with Hitler’s invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and especially Poland, but Pearl Harbor was the crucible.

        We need an external enemy to distract us from fighting each other and to achieve solidarity.