Will Sens. Marshall and Moran let Trump hurt Kansas farmers with tariffs again? | Opinion
And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed … then the lie passed into history and became truth.
- George Orwell, “1984.”
Mexico didn’t build the wall. The hurricane didn’t pummel Alabama. The 2020 election wasn’t stolen. Foreign countries don’t pay tariffs.
President Donald Trump expects the country to believe every one of those untruths, especially the untruth about tariffs. Complaisance inflicted enormous economic consequences the last time he started a trade war-a painful mistake the country is on the verge of repeating with the round of tariffs he announced March 3.
The political repercussions, and damage, may reach far beyond tariffs and trade policy — and be incalculable, if the untruths are allowed to pass, silently, into history.
In his first term, on March 3, 2018, Trump labeled two of America’s most important strategic allies — Canada and Mexico — national security threats, a reality-defying declaration. He levied 25% tariffs on their steel and aluminum. American soda and beer cans fabricated from aluminum sheets produced in Canadian and Mexican smelters are a national security threat?
The ensuing farm export wrecking trade war cost American farmers $27 billion in just 18 months. Kansas farmers were the third worst hit, losing almost $1 billion. Farm bankruptcies nearly doubled in the state.
Barely into office the second time, Trump rattled his trade war-provoking saber on Feb. 2, 2025, again days later on Feb. 10, and incredibly a third time.
Not only is tariff madness history repeating — so too is the history of acquiescence from the public officials who might stop the madness.
Trump’s “policies are working,” then-U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall wanted Kansans to believe in April 2019. One month later, former Sen. Pat Roberts and Sen. Jerry Moran stood alongside Marshall and heard state officials and legislators pleading with them to intercede with Trump. But they were silent.
Staring at new trade war, now-Sen. Marshall sought, this Feb. 6, to reassure farmers Trump would again “take care” of them, erroneously claiming the 2018 and 2019 payments were made with tariff collections. They weren’t.
The Department of Agriculture used its in-house financing facility, the Commodity Credit Corporation. After claiming that, Marshall and Moran voted to confirm Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought has pledged to end the CCC’s ability make the kind of payments it did to “take care” of farmers.
On the same day, during the confirmation hearing on the new head the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Marshall asked: “How can we build on President Trump’s success under Phase One with China?” But the self-proclaimed master dealmaker didn’t enforce that agreement. China didn’t buy one additional bushel Trump said it would. Success?
The economy lost 245,000 jobs. Expenses for the average household increased nearly $1,000 annually, in effect, “one of the largest tax increases in decades.” Trump also made $28 billion in “sorry about that” payments to farmers to attempt to distract from the damage his trade war wreaked.
The economy will likely, in time, rebound from the nearly certain devastation of a new trade war — and we hope the farm economy will, too.
But will the body politic? Will public trust recover from another round of unchecked lies? The Republican officials who might have been able to stop or moderate Trump’s past trade wars — and the one at hand — are just as complicit today.
They are mute as Trump illegally and unconstitutionally withholds congressionally appropriated money and dismantles agencies created by lawful federal statutes. When he attempted to alter the Constitution with the scribble of his Sharpie — silence. Will they stand mute when the president refuses to comply with a court order?
Yevgeny Yevtushenko — an elegantly defiant voice against unquestioning conformance to Soviet totalitarianism — cautioned: The truth is replaced by silence, and silence is a lie.
Now, will we be silent? And will our elected officials be silent, too?