After Hurricane Harvey plowed through east Texas with

roof-peeling winds and never-before-seen rain, millions of

Americans were left not knowing what to do or where to turn.

 

President Donald J. Trump made two trips to the flattened,

flooded region. In his first drop-in, most observers noted, the

President failed to cry with any bereaved, comfort any afflicted

or even hug one displaced victim. A second, more empathetic

trip followed a few days later.

After his Texas two-stop, the President

moved from visiting one natural disaster to

drumming up his own unnatural disaster.

Frustrated that America’s NAFTA partners

Canada and Mexico actually want to

negotiate, not rubber-stamp, his proposed

changes to the generation-old North

American free trade deal, Trump took

to Twitter to chastise our partners and

undermine our negotiators.

“We are in the NAFTA (worst trade

deal ever made) renegotiation process

with Mexico & Canada. Both being very

difficult, may have to terminate?” wrote

the Twitterer-in-Chief.

American farm leaders, who watch this Trump trade

melodrama almost weekly, rolled their eyes, bit their lips, and

said little.

Soon, however, the President, a compulsive commenter, let

his fingers do even more trade trash talking.

First, he Twitter-whipped one of America’s biggest, richest ag

importers, South Korea.

Next he threatened to break with any U.S. trading partner

who had anything to do with North Korea – arguably the

world’s most pressing nuclear threat.

The presidential huffing and puffing finally became too much

for some American ag leaders who were witnessing decades of

righteous trade preaching shredded by tweets from a seething

heretic who wouldn’t know the difference between a wagon and

a Wagyu.

On Sunday, Sept. 3, the American Soybean Assoc. (ASA)

publicly acted. In a toughly worded “stern warning,” it

cautioned the President that his threatened withdrawal from

the South Korea-U.S. trade deal and his “larger strategy of

brinkmanship with regard to trade agreements … could have

disastrous consequences” for American farmers and ranchers.

And, the ASA added, “As American soybean farmers, we

demand that the U.S. remain in KORUS” – the U.S.-South

Korea trade deal” – and that we move forward to negotiate new

trade agreements rather than retreating from existing ones.”

This call-out of our tweet-before-thinking President could be

a turning point for ag leaders.

As such, now is a good time for them to stop lining up to

have their pictures taken with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny

Perdue and, instead, start lining up to take control of a ruralfocused

new farm bill – a bill that balances trade, immigration,

and tax reform with rural development, climate change, and

local food programs.

The clear, obvious need for an improved rural America should, after all, come before the foggy, unfocused needs of a ranting, stop-and-go White House. Or so one hopes.

But hope can be fleeting. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, the White House, through Attorney General Jeff Sessions, started a sixmonth clock for Congress to act on DACA, the controversial (Sessions says unconstitutional) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive order from the Obama Administration.

 

On its own, DACA is an easy call for a majority of the Congress. Most voters and representatives agree that allowing the children of undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States is an example of what this nation does best; it fulfills dreams. American dreams.

But, says the Build That Wall wing of the Republican party, DACA is just a backdoor to broader immigration reform that candidate Trump swore to fight and they intend to hold his feet to that roaring fire.

American farmers and ranchers could play a crucial role in deciding DACA, also, because at least one-half of all U.S. agricultural workers today are undocumented. Loudly and publicly demanding broader immigration reform – just as the ASA demanded on trade – would send the White House the clear message that it needs to fix today’s most persistent farm and ranch problems, not create new ones.

It might also move Congress to do the same; fix what’s broken in the nation’s cities and fields, rather than silently wait to see what the White House will break next.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Alan Guebert may write to him in care of this publication.