The first casualties of Trump's trade wars are Texas cattle ranchers

[Quixote1818]

Richard Parker, Contributor

KYLE, Texas - If the first casualty of war is truth, then the first casualties of trade war are the working man and woman. And first among them is about to be the iconic Texas rancher.

Here in the rolling pastures of bright, green spring grass at the edge of the Texas Hill Country, the handful of large spreads prosper from a wet winter. The short-horned Charolais breed, imported from France via Mexico, grow thick and wide, their white coats bright in the sunshine of impending spring. The Charolais makes for some of the finest grass-fed beef in the world. Now that a years-long drought has broken, ranchers can count on trucking in less of that expensive coastal grass they require in the dry months.

But the Texas cattle rancher now faces a new threat: the Trump administration's blundering, blustering trade policy. By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.

Texas ranchers, though, will not be alone for long. Beef producers from Nebraska to the Dakotas face the same problems. So do grain farmers in Kansas and the snow-covered corn fields of Iowa, just like tomato farmers in California and Florida and autoworkers in Michigan, longshoremen, truckers and railway workers in Miami and Houston and Long Beach. These will be the first casualties of a trade war.

More: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/02/16/first-casualties-trumps-trade-wars-texas-cattle-ranchers?fbclid=IwAR3-AN4cn5du8zHEIqK0XMepivLkQbnuCOaLJC7dhkkOaXYtP-objDRTBBk

[pbmus]

1. The first casualties are Americans...every single last one of us.

[RockRaven]

2. Uhhh... good?

I don't know how much economic calamity we can cheer for on the hope that it will effect an election outcome (because it won't, at least not as directly as it ought), or out of pure schadenfreude.... because there are always downstream or nth order effects...

but if everyone *else* is going to suffer the consequences of a bunch of assholes voting for Trump, maybe we should hope, just out of a sense of equitable justice mind you , that those Trump voters suffer at least some share of said calamity.

[Kali]

3. while fairly accurate, article seems to be 2 + years old