U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Thursday that the Trump administration was not planning on providing assistance to nonagriculture industries hurt by its ongoing trade fights with other nations.
Lighthizer said that the $12 billion in assistance that the White House promised to agriculture on Tuesday was a special case, because that industry had been specifically targeted by the United States’ trading partners.
“There are a lot of people across the economy that are being negatively affected, we believe unfairly by predatory practices, particularly by China but also by other people. … It is the view of the administration that agriculture has been particularly targeted by retaliation as a result of the kinds of actions we are doing to try to level the playing field. Therefore the president and the secretary of agriculture put in place this program,” Lighthizer told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., asked if that meant that no assistance was planned for nonagriculture industries. “Not at this time,” Lighthizer replied.
[Opinion: Emergency farm aid is a New Deal solution to a stupid #MAGAnomics problem]
The agriculture industry has been directly targeted for retaliation by countries the U.S. is engaged in trade fights with. On July 6, China placed 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods including soybeans, pork, and chicken, among other items, in response to new U.S. tariffs against the country. Last month, Mexico imposed tariffs against $3 billion of U.S. products including pork, apples, and potatoes. The same month, Canada imposed tariffs on $13 billion in U.S. imports, including beef and agricultural chemicals. The $12 billion in aid announced Tuesday will be provided through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation, which provides price supports for farmers.
Senators pointed out that agriculture wasn’t the only industry suffering as a result of the trade fights. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., noted that companies that buy domestically were suffering because the prices of raw materials were rising due to the steel and aluminum tariffs.
“Steel accounts for 53 percent of the material in typical automobiles and aluminum 11 percent,” Alexander said. “In Tennessee, that is particularly bad news because we have 929 auto parts suppliers. They almost all use steel and aluminum. Three big car companies. That’s 136,000 workers. That’s a third of our manufacturing force. That’s not good for us.”
It also wasn’t clear where the line between agriculture and other industries was drawn, Shaheen noted. She pointed to the case of a specialty winery in her state that was suffering as a result of the trade disputes and would probably be considered a small business. “How do you distinguish between the two?” she asked. Lighthizer did not directly answer.
