(If only the media would report it…)
Media Matters with yet another of Trump’s insane comments:
Major newspapers and newswires failed to report that at a September 17 campaign event in Michigan, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump proposed reducing food imports in response to a question about how he’d reduce food costs, claiming that “our farmers are being decimated.” Several economists explained the obvious point that reducing the supply of food by restricting imports would actively increase food prices.
During the town hall, an audience member asked Trump how he would “bring down the cost of food and groceries.” After Trump rambled about unrelated energy prices and Federal Reserve interest rates, he responded:
“We gotta work with our farmers. Our farmers are being decimated right now. They’re being absolutely, absolutely decimated. And you know, one of the reasons is we allow a lot of farm product into our country. We’re gonna have to be a little bit like other countries. We’re not gonna allow so much come — we’re gonna let our farmers go to work.”
Several economists were quick to point out that this would not reduce food prices. In fact, it would raise them.
University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers wrote, “I’m exhausted even saying it, but blocking supply won’t reduce prices, and it’s not even close.”
Cato Institute vice president Scott Lincicome posted: “Well, technically, you can’t get a price lower than zero (bc the food won’t be available at all bc it can’t be grown in the US for most of the year).”
Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker commented: “That’s what you get when you ask someone who both knows nothing about economics and has never had to buy his own groceries in his life.”
Former Labor Secretary and University of California, Berkeley public policy professor Robert Reich added: “Trump’s plan to lower food prices is to reduce the supply of food. Think grocery prices are high now? Just wait.”
Yet, according to a search of the Factiva database from September 17 through noon on September 18, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Reuters all failed to cover this statement from Trump. (These newspapers have a history of almost entirely failing to cover Trump’s inflationary policies in their print news coverage of inflation.)
Why? It seems like all we’ve heard for the past three years is massive bellyaching about inflation and Trump is out there saying that he’s not only going to raise the price of groceries but he’s going to make a whole lot of stuff just disappear from the shelves for most of the year. (Those of you on the older side, like me, will recall what it was like when you could only get produce in season and often couldn’t get it at all.) Why isn’t his daft “economic plan” a huge story on the front page with headlines that say, “Trump promises to hike inflation with huge taxes on groceries.” That would be the truth.