Southern California newspapers call Trump's trade policies 'disaster'

LOS ANGELES -- The Southern California News Group (SCNG) on Sunday published an editorial titled "$12 billion payout to farmers is a tariff-based disaster," saying a bailout announced earlier this month underscored the failure of the Trump administration's trade policies.

The editorial, written by the SCNG Editorial Board, opened with a pointed question: "If President Donald Trump's tariffs and trade wars are so great for the American economy, then why does he have to shell out, as he did this month, $12 billion to farmers adversely affected by tariffs and trade wars?"

"The simple answer is of course that tariffs and the trade wars they lead to are never great for our economy, or for that of any other country. They are additional taxes - as if we needed additional taxes - on the American consumer, and no one else," it said.

The opinion piece branded Trump's calculations on tariffs as fundamentally flawed and his understanding of foreign trade as outdated, saying that tariffs no longer play a significant role in raising federal revenue in the era of globalization.

It quoted Jay Shambaugh of the Brookings Institution as warning that Trump's trade war would be disastrous for the US economy, as it would hurt consumers, damage the country's most productive firms, slow economic growth and undermine US relationships around the world.

The editorial depicted the $12 billion payout to farmers as an unfair measure aimed at papering over problems created by the administration itself.

It questioned the administration's attempt to address an issue rooted in its own trade policies, pointing out that much of the money would go to growers of so-called "row crops" such as soybeans, many of which had been sold smoothly to trading partners before Trump launched his trade war.

"It's not going to help everyone in the already struggling American agricultural sector adversely affected by tariffs. Tractor maker John Deere says that tariffs will cost it $600 million in 2025," the editorial added.

The Southern California News Group is an umbrella organization of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area, with 11 daily publications covering five counties in the region.