Letter to the Editor: Submitted by Ann Fields

To the Editor:

Farmers are a dying breed. During the 1980s, my first husband and I lost our farm in a farm bankruptcy, along with 250,000 other farmers. This wasn’t because we weren’t good farmers, but because the federal government created artificially high interest rates and inflation was out of control. Another farm debt crisis is happening now, thanks to tariffs, the possible importing of beef from Argentina, and hand-outs to Argentina.

The tariffs on soybeans caused our largest buyer, China, to stop buying U.S. products, and they have turned to Argentina. Tariffs are meant to “even the playing field,” but instead the tariffs decimated the playing field, and thus are decimating farmers.

And this week (10/18/2025), Trump floated the idea of buying beef from Argentina to reduce the price of beef in the grocery stores. Now, he is reducing the one profitable enterprise for farmers, after years of losing money on beef.

And Trump gave Argentina $20 billion - twice - for a total of $40 billion. What? Rewarding a country taking our biggest markets - both soybeans and beef?

During Trump’s first term, his trade conflicts penalized farmers. Trump acknowledged this and bribed farmers with $23 billion for their continued support.

Now, during Trump’s second term, farmers are paying the price again with high input costs and low prices. As in the first term, the administration is bribing farmers, promising more handouts.

Farmers want free markets and an opportunity to feed the world. We do not and will not have free markets under Trump and the Republican Project 2025.  The only way to return to free markets is to acknowledge the truth and vote them out, before more farmers pay the price by losing their farms due to Trump’s policies.

Ann Fields
Lansing