Port: North Dakota farmers need competent trade policies, not a bailout

MINOT — As expected, President Donald Trump has bailed out farmers who have been wounded by his trade wars and tariffs.

Farmers will receive a $12 billion package, and Trump would like you to believe this is a reinvestment of the "hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs" from foreign countries. "We're going to use that money to provide $12 billion in economic assistance to American farmers," he's said, which isn't how tariffs work. They're a tax (which is also why Trump implementing them through executive orders is unconstitutional) and they are built into the price of imported goods and services.

The money isn't coming from foreign countries. It's coming from Americans, including, ironically enough, the very farmers who Trump is now bailing out in part because tariffs