[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 149 (Tuesday, September 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5503-S5505]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Tariffs

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, we all returned to Washington last week 
after, in my case, spending 5 weeks in the State of Montana. It is 
always great being in Montana, being able to get around the State and 
visit with folks and see the challenges they are dealing with on a 
daily basis and hear directly from them.
  I can tell you that one of the things I heard a lot about--Montana is 
an ag State--was the price of grain and the price of cattle. The 
marketplace is very, very depressed. It doesn't matter that Montana is 
a big State, and it doesn't matter what corner of the State you are in. 
We have some challenges, and those challenges have been brought about 
by really, really bad public policy when it comes to tariffs. These 
tariffs have increased the price of steel, for example, which increases 
the price of the equipment that folks in agriculture and everybody have 
to buy.
  On the other side of the coin, because of the tariffs that are put on 
ag commodities, it has driven all ag commodities down. The tariffs on 
soy, for example, have driven all the commodities down, including 
wheat, which we raise

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a lot of in Montana, but also pulse crops and everything.
  In fact, when I was determining what we were going to plant this 
spring, I was trying to find what we could make money off of. Quite 
frankly, commodity prices are down across the board, and there wasn't 
anything that you could turn a profit on. I don't say that being a 
farmer who wants to complain about prices, because we do that 
occasionally. I say that because the price of hard red ordinary winter 
wheat, which probably doesn't mean much to anybody unless you are in 
agriculture, is about the same price it was in about May of 1978, when 
I took the farm over. That is not inflation-adjusted prices. That is 
what it is selling for, a little over $3.50 a bushel.
  If you take a look back at 1978, it doesn't take a nuclear physicist 
to figure out that things cost a little less back then. You could buy a 
car for probably about 15 percent of what you are paying for one now, 
and farm equipment was the same way. It was far, far, far less 
expensive. My dad bought a brand-new four-wheel drive tractor, for 
example, 3 years earlier, in 1975. He paid about $20,000 for it, and 
today that tractor would run you north of $200,000.
  So we have a lot of challenges out there, and it all starts with the 
price of ag commodities. It isn't like Mother Nature frowned on us all 
and put us into a drought or put a hailstorm on us or put locusts on 
us. It is all man-made.
  I think most people in this body would tell you that, as to what is 
going on with China right now, even though China does need to be held 
accountable, we can't do it alone. We have to bring our allies in. That 
is why it is not working, and that is why ag commodity prices are in 
the tank.
  So why should anybody care if you are not involved in agriculture?
  There was an old bumper sticker that was on cars a few decades ago 
that said: If you eat, you are involved in agriculture. That is a fact. 
If you want to talk about things like food security and being able to 
have food on the shelves, those family farmers are critically 
important. If you force them out of business, that is more 
consolidation, that is less people living in rural America, and that is 
a problem, and it is less certainty with our food supply.
  We feed the world for a good reason--because there are a lot of 
family farmers out there who work very, very hard each and every day, 
and we overproduce, and the overproduced items need to be exported. If 
they are not, the prices go down. That is what we see right now. We see 
overproduction, because we produce food, and if that food is not 
exported, the prices go down, and they go down and they go down. Now 
they are prices that we had 40 years ago.
  Now, this administration's solution for this problem is to borrow 
money from our kids and write farmers checks. I don't know a farmer out 
there who wants to go down to the local FSA, or the Farm Service 
Agency, government office and get a check. We do it, but that is not 
the preferred place. The preferred place is from the grain elevator or 
from the livestock auction. But because prices are so low, now farmers 
have to have a bailout.
  People talk about socialism and who is advocating for socialism 
around here, but the fact is that this is pretty much socialistic. The 
sad part is that the amount farmers are getting is probably about a 
tenth, once again, of what they are losing in the marketplace, if we 
had trade, if we were out promoting trade, and if we were moving the 
ball forward to get rid of the excess production. But instead, it is 
tariff after tariff after tariff because we are trying to teach 
somebody a lesson. Unfortunately, because we don't have our allies 
onboard with us, we haven't seen much success.
  We have a problem. The forefathers set forth three coequal branches 
of government. Unfortunately, I have been a bit frustrated because the 
legislative branch hasn't been able to do much about these tariffs, and 
we need to reinsert ourselves.
  I have a bill that I intend to drop in very soon that will empower 
the legislative branch. Hopefully, we can get it through committee and 
get it to the floor. It seems that we always ask permission of the 
administration as to whether we are going to take up any bills on the 
floor in this body, the greatest deliberative body--it used to be; it 
is not anymore--when, in fact, we need to take back the power. We need 
to hold the administration, the executive branch--whether there is a 
Democrat in the White House or a Republican in the White House--
accountable on these issues that revolve around trade.
  It is important because we are having a debate right now about 
whether we should be just a rubberstamp for the executive branch on 
appropriations. We have given away our power on trade. It is our job to 
deal with issues of trade. I am talking about Congress's job. I have a 
bill to bring back some of that power.
  I will tell you, I hope that tomorrow all these tariffs and trade 
issues go away. I don't think that is realistic. In fact, I think we 
have seen a lot of our foreign trading partners that were traditionally 
our partners turn to other countries to get their products. I think 
that is a problem long term and certainly a problem short term because 
we are feeling it in the short term. When they start getting their ag 
commodities from Australia and Argentina or some other country, it is 
hard to get those customers back, even when the trade agreements have 
been ratified.
  I ask the executive branch to quit playing games with American 
agriculture. I know that most of the farmers support the Trump 
administration, but I am telling you, we saw a mass exodus off the 
farms in the 1980s--the family farm agriculture--because of bad 
policies, due in part to this town, and I am afraid we are going to see 
that again. I have already seen it in my neighborhood, and I think it 
is just the start.
  It is time that we start to do what we do; that is, we need to export 
some of this product.
  The Farmers Union was in last week, and one of the people in the 
Farmers Union, from the Montana group, said: What do we do about the 
excess supply? Well, what we do with the excess supply is what we have 
always done with the excess supply: We ship it out. We export it. And 
when those exports dry up, we have wheat. We can't get rid of soy. Corn 
is in a pinch. As I said earlier, all ag commodities are depressed.
  While we sit here and talk about the important stuff that we talk 
about, just know that the American farmer, the family farmer, is 
hurting. I will tell you that one thing that made this country great is 
family farm agriculture. If it gets consolidated, whether it is a 
family who owns tens of thousands of acres or controls tens of 
thousands of acres or whether it is a corporation, it is the same 
thing. You have nobody living in rural America, and it impacts our food 
security in this country. Quite frankly, it is very bad for democracy.
  I invited the President to come to Montana to visit with the 
producers so he could hear it from their mouths. I haven't gotten a 
response. The bottom line is, he needs to know that rural America is 
not New York City. It has challenges, and if we don't do our job and 
get products exported, we are going to see it change, we are going to 
see it dry up, and we are literally going to see it blow away. It is 
not a step forward. It is not making this country great. In fact, it is 
exactly the opposite.
  I hope the President comes to Montana. I hope he visits with the 
producers. He will find a friendly crowd. I think most of them voted 
for him. He will be able to hear from the horse's mouth what is 
happening with trade and hopefully get these trade tariffs and all the 
things around trade that have been negative for family farm agriculture 
put behind us. I think time is of the essence. It may be too late for a 
lot of folks. We may see a lot of good operators no longer able to make 
a living in agriculture. Time is of the essence.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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