Thanks to Trump's tariff wars, China has virtually stopped buying American soybeans, causing a significant financial blow to American farmers. China used to buy 54 percent of the U.S. soybean crop, but since the Trump administration imposed punitive tariffs on the country, China has virtually stopped buying U.S. soybeans for its own soybeans. from Brazil instead of.
Host Martha Raddatz faced this fact on ABC. this weekTrump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant — a former hedge fund manager who boasts a net worth of more than $500 million and leases $25 million worth of farmland to soybean farmers — tried to portray himself as an ordinary farmer who understands the “pain” of American farmers.
“China is boycotting American soybeans and American farmers are really hurting. Do you see any real light at the end of the tunnel there that they might allow soybeans to be grown again?” Raddatz asked Bessent on Sunday.
“Well, Martha, if you don't know this, I actually grow soybeans. So I felt that pain too,” Bessent said. But Bessent is not a farmer; he is a landlord who rents to real farmers.
Bessent added that by stopping buying American soybeans, China is trying to hurt farmers, who he said are “some of President Trump's biggest supporters.”
“I think we have responded to farmers' concerns, and I'm not going to get ahead of the president, but I do believe that when the announcement of the deal with China comes out, our soybean farmers will be very pleased with what's happening both this season and in the coming seasons for several years,” Bessent said.
Bessent likes to pull out the phrase “I'm a farmer” when confronted with the impact of tariffs on American farms – an attempt to humanize himself and pretend he can relate to farmers who suddenly find themselves with a surplus of crops that aren't selling thanks to the president Bessent serves.
“You may or may not know, I am a farmer,” Bessent said in May when asked about the tariffs.
If you're wondering whether it's a massive conflict of interest for the Treasury Secretary to own crops he's negotiating to sell to China, you'd be right, according to government ethics experts.
Bessent, a former hedge fund manager who has worked in finance his entire adult life, owns up to $25 million worth of farmland in North Dakota that generates up to $1 million a year in rental income, financial disclosure forms show. During his confirmation hearings, Bessent vowed that if confirmed, he would divest these assets. But a year later, Bessent still owns interests in several assets, including his farmland.
“I have initiated the process of finding buyers for these private assets, but all three assets are private investments for which there is no liquid market for their resale,” Bessent wrote in a June letter to the Treasury Department's ethics office regarding assets he has not yet sold, including farmland, a flavored water company and a pharmaceuticals company. for clinical trials.
Bessent claims he has sold 96 percent of his assets to which he was obligated and says he is working to sell them completely by Dec. 15.
Bessent's investments raise a number of concerns, including among Treasury Department ethics officials, who wrote in letter Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo: “This [Bessent’s] personal responsibility to avoid any action that could create a real or apparent conflict of interest with respect to its assets.”
Bessent's refusal to fully sell his assets is just one example violated ethics What determine this administration.
As Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democratic member of the Finance Committee, noted: said To New York Times“If these guys had thought about cleaning up the stench of corruption from this administration, the Treasury Secretary wouldn't have to choose which ethical requirements to follow and which to ignore.”
