Washington, D.C. — As a part of the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s ongoing seven-figure effort to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his broken 2016 campaign promises—and with farm owners filing for bankruptcy at the highest levels in more than a decade as a result of Trump’s trade policies—CAPAF is releasing a new video in a targeted paid social media campaign. The campaign will tell stories of Americans such as Les Danielson, a farmer of 30 years in northwestern Wisconsin, who works with dairy, grain, soy, and corn. His family farm is stuck in the middle of Trump’s erratic trade policy.
Watch the video on Twitter.
Watch the video on Facebook.
President Trump campaigned in 2016 throughout much of the Midwest, including in Wisconsin, appealing to farmers such as Danielson with the message that Trump would strengthen the farm economy. Instead, he set off a series of erratic multibillion-dollar trade disputes, leading to retaliatory tariffs that would affect famers. Danielson says he never believed Trump’s rhetoric and that it’s “impossible to overstate the damage” that Trump’s erratic trade policies have done to farmers in Wisconsin.
“I don’t think President Trump appreciates that you don’t build markets overnight. We worked on building these markets for decades, and the damage has been done in such a short time.”
As a result of President Trump’s trade policies, the average farmworker income has fallen to a near 15-year low. In Wisconsin, 8 percent of dairy farms went under last year, leaving many to worry about not only the future of their businesses, but the surrounding economy as well. As Danielson says in the video:
“In small-town Wisconsin, the rural economy really depends on the farm economy, and as the prices are low for dairy farmers, it’s really the rural economy that’s being damaged.”
On Twitter, President Trump addressed the struggles farmers were facing as a result of his erratic trade policies, insisting that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Danielson says he worries whether his farm will be around for his two children. “Farmers are worried about the long-term effects of this trade war,” he says.
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