If there's one thing British and American farmers have in common, it's that an increasing number of them largely rely on exports to foreign markets to make a sustainable living and those exports could be destroyed by their dear leader.
The prime minister and harbinger of the British apocalypse, Boris Johnson, visited south Wales yesterday where he implied that the government would implement a Trump-style bailout for farmers if it's necessary, but he also said that won't be necessary.
Entire sectors of the United Kingdom's agricultural industry could be wiped out if they crash out of the European Union (EU) in a hard Brexit without remaining inside the EU's customs union, but Johnson said leaving the EU will actually be great for farmers. It's an enormous opportunity, he says.
Johnson said after visiting a south Wales poultry farm that his Conservative government would support farmers if their markets became “tricky.”
“We will look after the farming sector,” he said. “We will make sure that they have the support that they need.”
But National Farmers’ Union President Minette Batters said Britain exports 40% of its lamb and mutton, most of it to EU nations.
″(If) we’re tariffed out of the EU market, where does that 40% go?” she said. [...]
Johnson’s government argues that leaving the 28-nation trading bloc and its Common Agricultural Policy will be “a historic opportunity to introduce new schemes to support farming” and will open up new markets for U.K. agricultural exports.
The government’s Wales Secretary Alun Cairns said “90% of global growth will come from outside of the EU.” However, trade with the EU accounts for almost half of all British exports and any new trade deals are years away.
You know, it's easy to say that 90 percent of growth will come from outside of the EU if you're starting from zero.
You don't "open up new markets" by shuttering access to the largest trading bloc in the world, of course. That's not how anything works. And trade deals with other nations, such as the United States for example, would take years to negotiate and ratify.
If the United Kingdom began working on a trade deal with the U.S. tomorrow, it would not be complete before Boris Johnson is out of office.
I don't know if British farmers are as gullible as American farmers but, more importantly, they didn't vote for Boris Johnson. No one did. Johnson was chosen by party leaders, not the people.