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Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., talks with reporters in the Capitol’s Senate subway before the Senate Policy luncheons on June 19, 2018.
Republican senators Tuesday condemned the Trump administration’s $12 billion bailout plan for farmers hit by crippling tariffs on their goods.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., came out swinging against the newly proposed aid package, describing it as a pair of “gold crutches” to support the farmers hobbled by President Donald Trump’s own trade policy.
“This trade war is cutting the legs out from under farmers and the White House’s ‘plan’ is to spend $12 billion on gold crutches,” Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, said in a statement.
“America’s farmers don’t want to be paid to lose – they want to win by feeding the world. This administration’s tariffs and bailouts aren’t going to make America great again, they’re just going to make it 1929 again,” he added.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue unveiled the plan Tuesday, calling it a short-term fix intended to provide “time to work on long-term trade deals.” The announcement came hours after Trump took to Twitter to proclaim: “Tariffs are the greatest!” The president, ahead of trade talks with European Union representatives, argued that the levies would force other countries to come to the table.
Trump tweet Tariffs are the greatest
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., however, called on the Trump administration to “reverse course and end this incoherent” tariff policy in a statement.
He described the aid proposal as “offering welfare to farmers to solve a problem they themselves created” and suggested that the stimulus itself is evidence that the Trump administration “finally seems to understand that the Trump-Pence tariffs are hurting the American people.”
In other remarks on Tuesday, Corker said “it’s hard to believe there isn’t an outright revolt right now in Congress,” according to a Bloomberg reporter.
Sahil Kapur tweet
Corker, who is among the most vocal critics of Trump from within the president’s own party, is not seeking re-election at the end of his term in 2018.
Other Republican senators criticized the bailout plan in remarks to reporters. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., lamented the Trump administration’s increasing interference in the economy.
“This is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here,” Johnson reportedly said, with “commissars” providing benefits.
Ron Johnson tweet
