In this episode of the Ag Tribes Report, host Vance Crowe is joined by Charles Benoit, a trade attorney and trade counsel for the Coalition for Prosperous America. Charles brings a unique perspective on trade policies, particularly tariffs, and their impact on agriculture in the US and Canada. He discusses the historical context of tariffs, comparing current trade dynamics to those of the early 19th century, and argues against the prevailing free trade narrative taught in economics classes. Charles emphasizes the importance of protective tariffs for domestic producers and critiques the globalist trade myths that have shaped modern economic policies.
The conversation delves into the current tariff situation, highlighting the challenges faced by US farmers due to escalating global trade tensions. Charles explains the dual purposes of tariffs—revenue and protection—and discusses the implications of recent tariff policies on various agricultural sectors. The episode also touches on the controversial views surrounding tariffs, with insights from industry voices like RCAF and Casey Kimbrell. Additionally, the discussion briefly explores the role of Bitcoin in global trade and Charles' views on economic theories, offering listeners a thought-provoking take on trade and agriculture.
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. This Mother's Day, honor your parents with the opportunity to tell their stories and share the wisdom they've learned along the way. Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:00:34] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we are doing something a little bit different. We have Charles Benoit. Charles is a trade attorney and trade counsel for the Coalition for Prosperous America in DC. He champions domestic producers and a protective tariff policy. He holds a BA from Western Ontario representing our Canadian listeners and a JD from Georgetown. He's advised the European Commission and worked with General Electric representing businesses before federal courts and the US Trade Commission. He is a vocal critic of globalist trade myths, and he is a respected expert in, trade pair up in tariff policy. So, Charles, welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. Thanks for having me, Vance. Man, this is the time that you have been living for. This has to be the wildest time of all for somebody like you. Yeah. So that that's actually exactly right. I, you know, I actually I got into tariffs and trade,
[00:01:41] Unknown:
you know, right out of law school, Georgetown. If you wanna if you want there's only two cities in the world if you really wanna get into trade policy. It's DC and Geneva. Those are the two cities to be in. I found myself in DC at Georgetown with all the best people. And, I mean, there is no interest in American law students. Like, I I was American law student, JD, and all my classmates were actually for an LLM. An LLM is a one year master's in law degree you can get, and it's popular with, like, foreigners to come over and it's like foreign lawyers, I should say, and do a one year master's in law in American schools. And most of my like, students in my class, they've actually worked for their foreign trade ministry, and they just came to Georgetown to do So yeah. I mean, there was, like, me and two other American JD students, and it worked out great because I graduated peak great recession, you know, 2010.
But and all my classmates in trade were all going back to their country. And so I I was able to go directly from law school into GE at the height of great recession because I picked this niche. It was a very boring niche for a very long time, a very discouraging niche, until, things really turned around,
[00:02:44] Unknown:
with president Trump. So you're exactly right. I mean, and it is just a wild time. I mean, in every single college in The United States, it is taught that tariffs are bad. You want free trade, and that's what we've always been striving for. But free trade has always been filled with they have tariffs on our goods, but we don't have them, when they bring them in. And so we've been living in this bizarro, pseudo free trade world for quite some time.
[00:03:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. We that's exactly right. People have no idea about the history. The amount of gaslighting is, you know, gaslighting being, like, just like telling people a fake story over and over again until, like, they're forced to believe it. Or, yeah. It's it's actually insane. I I'm very passionate about the history. You know, people don't realize, that we nothing is new under the sun. And in fact, the historical analogy to where we are in 2025 is the 1816 to 1824 time period. That's exactly it. You know, back then, we were very import reliant. We've been up until the war of eighteen twelve. Well, well, Jefferson's embargo act, Napoleonic Wars, and then the war of eighteen twelve. We were a trading nation like we are now.
We had relatively low tariffs, and and it was it was being it was Britain and France taking turns cutting us off from trade and forcing us to learn to be self reliant. They can't that was it. That kind of spawned, the industrialization of The United States, and also the idea that we should protect our farmers, from you know, we gotta look, we gotta feed ourselves. That's vitally important. And that that kicked off after then, and we kind of rode that up. And it's just sort of, like, imagine the planes flying and, you know, it was a little it wasn't like a perfectly smooth cruise, but but, generally, we were holding 30,000 feet of altitude, and then it came crashing down in 1913.
Okay? That's when the income tax was invented. Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hull, who's the father of the income tax, they, you know, they were they prioritized international creditors. So they wiped out our tariffs in 1913. Farmers were destroyed. Okay? Because of what happened? It wiped out our wiped out all our tear our protective tariffs that protected our farmers. Now World War one happened right after, obviously. Right? So we didn't get the flood of imports. And Woodrow Wilson was telling farmers, this is great. You, you we're gonna feed the world. We're gonna feed the world. You heard that line before a bit. Right? We're gonna feed the world, told told all the farmers, leverage up, take on as much debt.
You know, do everything you can to increase output. We're gonna feed the world. They didn't listen to the mess the hard learned lesson that, in fact, countries will only buy our food when they need it. They wanna support their farmers too. Good for them, by the way. And, so what happens, World War one ends, American farmers are more levered than they've ever been. All of a sudden, Europe European agriculture comes roaring back. American farmer they they are the all prices come crashing down. Farmers are wiped out, and they did not get to participate in the roaring twenties. You should your listeners should Google the emergency tariff act of 1921.
You know, I wish our Republican Congress was like, had a a tenth of the ambition of that Republican Congress. They, you know, within two months of that congressional session starting, spring nineteen twenty '21, pardon me, they, or after the twenty election, all of the protective tariffs, on agriculture was restored. We still have the problem that the farmers were over levered and all this debt, but that happened. And from manufacturing, the protective tariffs were restored, and Republicans succeeded in wiping up the income tax for the bottom 98% of, payers and replacing that with tariff revenue.
And now everyone's gonna say, oh, it was Smoot Hawley. Well, that's the that's the mother of all gaslighting. I mean, the Sumuhi had nothing to do with the Great Depression. Nothing. It was a very incremental tariff increase. Right? So we went from total free trade to a protective tariff in '21. In '20 and then in 1922, they expanded it with the Fort Ni McCumber Act. The nineteen twenties the roaring twenties happened because of protective tariffs. Smooth Holley was a very incremental tariff increase at a time when, imports were less than 5% of GDP.
And, and, so I had nothing to do. That that the the Great Depression was a debt crisis and and a monetary crisis. And, you know, don't take my word for it. Listen to Ben Bernanke, who's, you know, actually did as a PhD in this subject. And, yeah. But then, 1934 was year zero. Okay? And that was the year Congress transferred the its tariff authority to the president, and, we've we've never recovered. And tariffs were pretty much wiped out. You know, we people think, oh, the nineteen fifties were great. Not if you're a rancher. Okay? Not if you were a fisherman. Not if you, you know, seafood. And, and, yeah, we've just been it's been a steady decline ever since then. You know, factories don't outsource overnight.
You know, it takes a couple of few generations, but same thing we've seen rural America wiped out. You know, I live in Buffalo, like, Rust Belt wiped out. It's all been a steady decline since that year zero.
[00:08:00] Unknown:
Well, that is what we are gonna talk about tonight is the tariffs that are going on right now. It feels like we are in a revolutionary time, and people might look at the stock market and say that. But, really, it is so many other things are gonna change as a result of this. So tonight, we are gonna talk about what, just we're gonna do a general overview of tariffs, and then we're gonna talk about what cattle ranchers like our calf and then Brett Crosby and how they disagree on the effects of tariff. And then we're also gonna go through a post by Casey Kimbrell, on why farmers, many of them are pro tariff. We're gonna do that. We'll also do a little bit on Bitcoin this week. We're gonna do Charles' Peter Thiel paradox because his worthy adversary, and we're gonna try and do that in just 30.
So right now, the, tariff situation, we are at Thursday, April 10, and so much is moving. Yeah. It's so quickly. You gotta say what the date is because, man, stuff is happening far Right. Fast. US Farmers are reeling from tariffs escalating global trade tension. China slapped an 84% tariff on American goods like soybeans and pork slashing exports down from 30,000,000 tons of soybeans to, to China to maybe just 2,000,000. The EU is also hitting back too with 25 duties on US poultry and nuts, and steel tariffs are jacking up tractor prices potentially by up to 20%. We're watching, fertilizer prices go, but, shockingly, egg prices are down mostly because we are importing eggs. And, there is so much going on that it's barely, it's it's hard to even know where to begin. When you look around at what the big news of the day is, Charles, what what are you paying attention to?
[00:09:41] Unknown:
So, there's two things. Okay. The tariffs have two purposes in the in the American tradition. And then a third, I would say, illegitimate purpose. Purpose revenue and protection. Okay? So on the on the revenue side, it's very clear. The president campaigned on a 10% universal tariff, and we got that. I and and credit to him, he's keeping his promise. That that that should bring in 300,000,000,000 a year, maybe. That's a lot of we're we're used to, like, we're used to congress spending. So maybe it doesn't sound, like, too much on the spending side, but on the revenue side, that's a lot. All corporate income tax is, like, 400,000,000,000. So 300,000,000,000 in in addition new revenue, that's a lot.
You know, for the the bottom half of income taxpayers submit about 50,000,000,000. Okay? So we get like, I mean, you can we get already with that 300,000,000,000. We can, you know, wipe out income tax for, like, the bottom 70%, I don't know, 80%, maybe. So that's the revenue side. Now on the protection side, and this is where, like, farmers and ranchers need to, and I know our CAF is on is on top of this, but the protection side is happening via with something called the section two three two process. Section two three two is the president's section two three two of the trade agreements Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and that authorizes the president to use increased tariffs for national security reasons.
So that's you probably a lot of your customers are aware of the automotive tariff, right, the car tariff, and that's been done via two three two. Similarly, with steel and aluminum, we've got new actions been launched on copper and copper products, timber and wood products, lumber. So that's and then and then automotive. There'll be more of pharmaceuticals is coming next. Noticeably absent is agriculture, so far. So, that's kind of I I think this is good. So kudos to the administration. Revenue, they're doing the universal. I think 10% is a little light. I think they should they should work their way to 20. And then on the protection side, the way to do it, the way to set tariffs is product by product.
So I I a lot of people thought, oh, man. Then why must be really disappointed and upset when the president canceled all those other country tariffs, the the so called reciprocal ones, which I guess was happened two days ago. So,
[00:12:06] Unknown:
I no. Not at all. Not at all. I I I the the back I don't know, man. Like, product by product is gonna become, like, a giant sprawling bureaucracy and administrative,
[00:12:17] Unknown:
like, people being able to go in and No. Tinker at the you don't think so? No. Congress did it. Goo goo I I encourage all your listeners. Google the terra fact of 1789.
[00:12:28] Unknown:
Yeah. But 1789, the the the products that we're bringing in versus now, I mean, like changed. Nothing's changed. Okay. Tell me what Nothing's changed.
[00:12:36] Unknown:
So, literally nothing has changed. Okay? There's nothing new under the sun in trade. Our tariff schedule today has 21 sections. Okay? 21. That's Roman numerals. So, section 21 is works of art, so we can just put that aside. So sections one to 20 are pretty much, like, everything. It's it is everything. And, sections one to five are agriculture. That's it. That's your universe. And it's in agriculture. Nothing has changed. I can tell you. You wanna be give give an example how nothing has changed? The tariff on, like, pork and bacon was set in 1824 at 2¢ a pound.
That remains the tariff today. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. It's it's it's it's a column two. There was not really any inflation in the nineteenth century, so they didn't adjust it for inflation. And then, like I said, nothing's changed. So and and and this was Congress doing it until 1930. Congress would set tariff rates, like, every, you know, decade, every decade and a half, we get a new tariff act. This is the it's literally what the founders intended, article one, section eight of the constitution. And that's it. There's Congress listening to their consumers, listening to their producers, compromising negotiating. There's no there's no bureaucracy. There wasn't until Wilson, you know, in the nineteen tens created the tariff commission, which is a giant failure.
But no. No. We get no. Our we don't even need a bureaucracy. It should be a direct conversation between our members of congress and the constituents.
[00:14:08] Unknown:
Alright. Let's take a look at the way that the cattle industry is weighed in. You mentioned RCAF. So for those that don't know, RCAF is kind of the renegade cattle organization that represents independent cattle ranchers. And today, they came out and said, in the last nine years, total beef imports increased by 44% and beef prices increased by 40%. Meanwhile, The US, census shows that The US has lost another a 7,000 beef cattle producers. And, but this brought on a lot of controversy. The ag podcaster, Matt Del Geshe, replied, you've had six years of herd liquidation and now the lowest herd since 1951. Imports have increased and beef prices are up due to this. It's drought forcing producers out of the game, not imports.
And then, Brett Crosby jumped in. He's a rancher from Wyoming saying, nope. Tariffs are simply a tax that increase prices and reward inefficiency. What do you think of that?
[00:15:05] Unknown:
Com complete nonsense. I mean, I it's not it's it literally everything but soybeans is down. K? Corn. You've I've you know, senator Grassley has been on senate finance for how many decades? And, we've had he's gotten everything he wanted. Okay? NAFTA, the Uruguay round, which that was it. I mean, that would that blew open agriculture. But then since then, I challenge people to go look at the you know, we've done 20 trade agreements since then. Sorry. 12 trade agreements with 20 countries. And for every one of those, look at the statements that were made at the time the trade agreement was gonna was, gonna take place.
And, and then now and then just look at the reality. Just look at the export stats. We've nothing's worked. Soybeans are the only thing that's up. So, for corn, which, you know, I I couldn't even believe it, but we export, less corn now than we did twenty years ago by volume, not even by value. So, like, so we we export less corn, everything. I'm in Florida. Because we want to. Right? We would love to export more. We just people aren't buying it. So the most famous speech in congressional history was, March 1824. Henry Clay, he was the speaker of the house. And what he launched was called the American system. Maybe a lot of listeners learned about that in school. It was a protective tariff, a central bank, and, internal improvements infrastructure.
That speech, he went through every single crop to show that, any over a twenty year period, he compared, like, 1800 to 1824 that, you know, some there's some there's some good export years, but countries will only buy from us what they absolutely need. And that was that that's right. And nothing has changed. So we we might might have some good export years, but countries shut it down as soon as they can. And, yeah. Senator Cantwell, she you know, from Washington state, the Democrat. I mean, she's another one along with Grassley who's championed free trade more than anybody. And, you know, she she champions apples, wheat, cherries, and potatoes.
And we are we export less than we did in 1995, despite all of these new trade agreements that they said would bring big success. So, look, the lesson is don't you don't chase exports. By the way, our population has grown 29% in that period. Right? Our GDP is actually up almost 300%, but, you know, whatever GDP. That's tech. But, yeah. Our population has grown by 29%, and we're exporting less food. Like, the once in the world population has grown by even more. So,
[00:17:50] Unknown:
it doesn't make any sense. Well, this kinda leads right into something that Casey Kimbrell, who's a a great follow on x, what he thinks happened in ag. On this blistering post, he got above, a journalist on x that had posted some things about agriculture. And I'm just gonna read this because I I think it's worthwhile. He says your bio says you write about things related to agriculture, yet one would have to be extremely out of touch not to understand that cheating trade partners have done to American agriculture. Those selling this type of trade promise prosperity, yet decade after decade of American ag has declined.
Chinese cotton mills decimated our domestic milling industry with the promise of buying our production, yet that never came. We were promised open markets for beef imports, but the, that that exceeded our exports. Once vibrant vegetable farms and packing sheds across the country are just a memory slain by cheap imports grown with scant labor and chemical regulations. He goes on and on. It's an excellent post. He's reflecting oh, sorry. I thought I posted what, what he wrote. He's just reflecting what, I think a lot of people are saying. And, Casey, would you say you agree with him? Is he right about ag being sold out right now?
[00:18:58] Unknown:
Ag is a % sold out, but also misled by all their representatives for the most part. I mean, I wish there was more groups like our CAF. I'll I'll say so I agree with him, except I I just we gotta stop using language like cheating, that it implies that in fact there's some great rule book that if we all just follow the rules, everything will be great. No. There's no rule book. There's no level playing field. These these are all mirages. Okay? And, you know, we we just have to focus what Henry Clay said, protect the home market. Don't worry about cheating. Don't talk about level playing field. And if anyone is talking to you about, we need to fight harder for exports, it's a gaslighting. Okay? What they're doing is those people are processors.
They want the cheapest input costs possible. They don't wanna pay they don't want you to be prosperous. They don't want you to have a you know, pasture farm onto your children. They don't want any of these things. They're flipping it. If we fight harder, what do we get? More market access commitments work both ways, more ability to, you know instead of having to pay a shrimper in Louisiana, we'll just use literal slaves, you know, off the Chinese coast. Literal slaves to get the shrimp. That's their game. So don't let anybody talk to you about, we're gonna get more exports, or we're gonna fight for the American farmer. No. We don't fight. Oh, and by the way, the gaslighting I I I don't wanna call you out, Vance, but this is like every time you hear the you you because you're you're in good company. The president's been fooled too. You know, talking about Canadian dairy. Like, if you listen to a ways and means or senate finance committee hearing, you would think America had two existential enemies, the Chinese Communist Party and Canadian dairy farmers.
We have an export surplus with dairy. It's one of a handful. It's one of a handful. K? You know? We run a trade deficit in almost every agricultural crop, and we actually export. And the the reason they hate Canadian dairy so much and I'm talking about the national milk processors. But the reason they hate that is because they they they they have rejected globalization. When NAFTA was renegotiated into USMCA, Canada, to protect their dairy farmers, promised The United States that we wouldn't even export that Canada wouldn't export dairy to third countries. K? That's how hard they went.
You like, we just wanna protect our home, Mark, but that's the right attitude. Protect your farmers, feed yourselves, you know, feed your nation,
[00:21:17] Unknown:
and, and don't chase exports. So, Would you think this, would you have this philosophy if there weren't tariffs by other people? If if there were zero tariffs across, do you believe that the world is better off when we do trade?
[00:21:29] Unknown:
No. It it there's it just doesn't I like, okay. I I you you need a home market. So Hawaii is a great example. Right? We we actually, you know, we we had a we had a a free trade agreement with Hawaii for thirty years before we ended up overthrowing their government and annexing and the and then asking them. And that that actually happened. I don't know. This is congress for us. I'm quoting You're awesome, Charles. Keep going. This is great. Okay. Oh, well, look. Yeah. So, I mean, how Hawaii is, like, the that's the one thing where like, was there ever a good trade agreement in US history? Well, no is the answer. The best one you could maybe point to was the trade agreement with Hawaii.
We did that in 1875, and, you know, we we threw, like, who who suffered? Louisiana? Like, people like, Louisiana and Florida, sugarcane farmers and western sugar beet farmers suffered. Sugar imports from Hawaii increased 1400%. And so you're like, okay. Well, was that was that good? I don't know. We had a substantial sugar tariff, and it was a 2¢ a pound. It was 64¢ a pound today, if we still had it. What we actually do sugar's sugar's the last man standing, by the way. I mean, there's so much I could say. I could talk about sugar for an hour. But, look, Hawaii, we didn't even get it done there. We sacrificed Western sugar beet farmers for a San Francisco San Francisco sugar refiners.
And, and then it was actually that was 1875. Fast forward to 1890, McKinley wants to raise manufactured tariffs on manufactured goods. He he's been he's then chairman of Ways and Means. He's under so much pressure. We gotta cut some other tariff. So what happened, he just cut the tariff on sugar to zero, which destroyed Hawaii, and we started getting all of our sugar from Cuba overnight. Then, and then this the sugar plant just overthrew the queen. And with, you know they they had with some military US military support. So, like, the it's not even like the trade agreement we had with Hawaii led to them being annexed. You know, if anything, it might have stalled the annexation by a couple decades.
Now we got Hawaii in the union. That's great. And, you know, Hawaii was an agricultural powerhouse. We supplied, like, 80% of the world's canned pineapple, you know, but unfortunately, that's all been lost, bananas, you name it, to free trade as well.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
And, I don't know that native Hawaiians are any better for it. I think my deep pushback against this, the thing that I I don't like is that it gives too much power to politicians to pick winners and losers if you have this tariff. It gives them the ability to say, hey. We're gonna make this easier on some people and harder on others or I I don't know. It it doesn't it doesn't feel like it's freedom encouraging. This is a really important point.
[00:24:17] Unknown:
Really important point. So the way tariffs you hear you might hear the term mechanicalism. The way tariffs have been used by literally every other country in the world is to build national champions and anti competitive. We hate that. Free market competition is the most important thing. I'm a conservative. If you don't have free market competition, like, you you have to have that. It's never been that's never using tariffs to protect a monopoly has never been the American tradition. You know, it it was we the the founders we we do want a big internal free trade. So under the articles of Confederation, every state had its own tariff policy. They knew the founders knew that that that didn't work. We we needed a larger internal home market with free trade, the same way Holy Roman Empire. You know, like, it was a million little customs territories. You had to constantly pay duties. It that that that doesn't work. You do need free market competition. Absolutely.
But, you we you just need it under one sovereign. Right? So when in another little we we had a free trade agreement with Canada, in 1854. In 1866, we tore it up, and because it was really bad for America and American farmers in particular and and the main lumber industry. And the Canadian provinces were all, like, they're they weren't a country yet. Oh, sorry. The British provinces that were then, But they merged. So, yeah, if country if provinces wanna merge or if, like, you wanna make a customs union, like, you know, what they did in Europe, that's a different thing. Because there, you've got one entity that can set the rules of the market. But to go back to ranchers, like, yeah, we all love Australia, New Zealand, like, high wage countries or whatever. Right? But, well, they authorize compound ten eighty, and we don't. There's always gonna be something like that. So you you just you it doesn't work. It doesn't work having just going to zero tariffs and saying, we'll let the chips fall where they may. That does not work. Man, you have been sitting outside of the Overton window for your entire career. And just in the last, like,
[00:26:19] Unknown:
two weeks, you've gone from radical to policy. That's like a giant jump because, I mean, the things that you're saying fly in the face of if anyone took a college level economics class, probably even a high school level economics class, this is in total defiance of what the entire country has been taught for as I mean, certainly my entire lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's you know, modern economics is astrology. It's just nonsense. But it I mean, look. Just go to history. Just go to, like, what worked. I I I don't know what to say other than that. Google the tariff act of 1824.
[00:26:51] Unknown:
Look at all those prices, or Google the tariff you know, go more recent. Google the tariff act of 1922. Look at, all those, tariffs,
[00:27:01] Unknown:
and, you know look. These are readable documents. You don't need to be a lawyer or an economist or anything. You can read it and be like, oh, wow. Yeah. That really worked out well. So we have blown through the the regular rigmarole that we do on the Ag Tribes report. But I thought maybe, I would ask you a real quick question about Bitcoin. Where are you at on Bitcoin? Gold has been, like, surging into The United States, but there are no tariffs on Bitcoin. Hard to do that. No. Yeah. We don't, nothing,
[00:27:27] Unknown:
nothing that's digital is tariff. Tariffs only tangible things that show up in a port. Well and and electricity electricity can be tariffed, but that's it.
[00:27:36] Unknown:
And thoughts on Bitcoin? Do you think this will, this is this kind of tariff trade? I mean, we're hearing now big rumors of, Russia and China are now starting to settle some of their oil, their energy, deals in Bitcoin. Any thoughts on
[00:27:51] Unknown:
this? You know, look, a lot of people I really respect, are are very into it. To me, you know, I I think I find Dave Ramsey's line very persuasive. Right? He's just like the sovereign's always gonna sit the currency, when, you know, when Iraq fell and they just they create a new currency, people accept it. So, you know, I like, for me, for Bitcoin to, like, take over to be a big thing, you would have to have, like, total sovereign collapse. And at then at that point, I'm like, well, I hope I'd I'd rather invest my money right now in a chicken coop, if that makes any sense than, you know. But I I I don't I don't I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not so sure you need total sovereign collapse. I think there are a lot of values that that come out of Bitcoin, but I take your point. Moving on to the because I'm super curious, the Peter Thiel paradox.
[00:28:37] Unknown:
What is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on? Which has gotta be basically your entire philosophy.
[00:28:44] Unknown:
Well, yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think no. Well, look. I'm the the president agrees with me on tariffs, so that's pretty good. Yeah. No. But historically, I guess, yeah, the economics is astrology. It's just, like, all these models, it's just complete mumbo jumbo. What I see, the data feeds economics is almost, like, everywhere I look is garbage.
[00:29:02] Unknown:
Not not volumes. But, like, when it once once you get into values, you're talking about, oh, well, look the value of something. Value is just, like, whatever. It's yeah. So You know, I'm I'm gonna give you a straight up, like, I don't know, like, probably the highest one I've ever given, like a nine eight here, but not for your particular one that you said here. But I will say that your, thoughts on, inside of a country, you should have free trade, but outside of a country, you should be setting those. I actually need to sit down and really think about what I believe. There are some, like, core things that I naturally think, but you've you've called into question something that I thought was, natural. So, I mean, bravo. Like, that that's the highest score I've ever known. More.
[00:29:45] Unknown:
Globalization drives consolidation. Okay. So, you know, you you can't have a global antitrust policy. Antitrust has been very important to farmers and ranchers historically. So, you know, there's another one. Globalization drives consolidation. Everyone says, oh, globalization. It's more competition. No. The opposite. You know, if you wanna preserve a competitive market, you have to do it within a sovereign. People are free to come invest here. If you can build a better widget, we want you. And that that that's uniquely American. Lesser countries restricted investment and said, no. We're building a national champion. America's always said, you can build a better widget. Come and build it. So that's the that's American exceptionalism.
[00:30:19] Unknown:
This is somebody that you respect but strongly disagree with?
[00:30:29] Unknown:
California governor Gavin Newsom. That guy is so I just I just I I admire competence. I like, that guy is so awesome. I I enjoy listening to him speak even as I, you know, totally disagree with him. You know, and, like, I I I so enjoy listening to him speak. I couldn't even be mad at his president even though I'd never vote for him.
[00:30:47] Unknown:
That's a that's a very good one. You know, I have I've known a couple con men in my life, and they have, like, a they have a slickness to them. Right? Like, a willingness to say whatever they need to say. And Yeah. I'm I don't think I'm ever gonna wrap my mind around that. Plus, I was living out in California when he got busted for, sleeping with his campaign manager's wife, and his campaign manager was, like, his best friend. And that, like, just kinda disappeared, and you're like, how could you ever trust, somebody that would do that? But I just I I admire, like,
[00:31:17] Unknown:
his confidence, his ambition, and, he's you know, he's got his new podcast now. I whereas I can't tell you how contemptuous I am of your typical Republican legislator. Okay? They're just like, oh, shucks. They're lazy. They're so lazy. And, you know, just, like, phoning it in. No vision. No, like, whatever. Just happy just happy to have their little sinecure. So and then I see someone like Gavin, like, hustling so hard. So I guess that's why I'm just, like, you know, I I I I can respect a very capable and skilled politician.
[00:31:50] Unknown:
Well, Charles, I made a terrible mistake having you on the Ag Tribes Report. I should have waited just another day so you and I could have a long form podcast. So I hope you will come back on Yeah. Definitely. I'd love that. That'd be fun. If, if people wanted to know more about the way you think about things or they think, hey. That's a guy that I want representing my trade interests, where should they go to find out more? Yeah. So, I mean, check out prosperousamerica.org.
[00:32:14] Unknown:
That's, you know, that's our website. But, so that's a great way. Or reach out to me on x. It's charles underscore benoit, b e n o I t.
[00:32:24] Unknown:
Well, thank you so much for coming on, Charles. Alright. So Mother's Day is just four weeks away. And if you've been thinking about getting your mother a gift, I can tell you from my own experience calling up my mother and saying I was gonna pack up all the equipment and go up there to do a mother's or a legacy interview. You will find no better gift. A legacy interview is where I sit down with your loved ones. We do it online or in person, here in our studios, and we record their life stories talking about the things that mattered to them throughout their lives, the experiences that they had, and the lessons that they learned. And then after you're done with that interview, you can play it, while watching it with your parents and their grandchildren. And we get photos of people watching those interviews with their family members, and it is a truly profound thing.
So if you're interested to learn more, go to legacy interviews dot com to find out more. Alright. We will be back next week. I've actually been getting hit up by some people that run some, checkoff organizations that wanna say, hey. We wanna come in and talk about our perspectives, and I look forward to doing that. So alright. As always, feel free to disagree.
The Ag Tribes Report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are so the future knows who they really were. This Mother's Day, honor your parents with the opportunity to tell their stories and share the wisdom they've learned along the way. Welcome to the AgTribe's report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crow. The report begins in three, two, one. Let's begin.
[00:00:34] Unknown:
Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crow. Each week, I bring on a cohost to represent the perspectives of one of the many ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week, we are doing something a little bit different. We have Charles Benoit. Charles is a trade attorney and trade counsel for the Coalition for Prosperous America in DC. He champions domestic producers and a protective tariff policy. He holds a BA from Western Ontario representing our Canadian listeners and a JD from Georgetown. He's advised the European Commission and worked with General Electric representing businesses before federal courts and the US Trade Commission. He is a vocal critic of globalist trade myths, and he is a respected expert in, trade pair up in tariff policy. So, Charles, welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. Thanks for having me, Vance. Man, this is the time that you have been living for. This has to be the wildest time of all for somebody like you. Yeah. So that that's actually exactly right. I, you know, I actually I got into tariffs and trade,
[00:01:41] Unknown:
you know, right out of law school, Georgetown. If you wanna if you want there's only two cities in the world if you really wanna get into trade policy. It's DC and Geneva. Those are the two cities to be in. I found myself in DC at Georgetown with all the best people. And, I mean, there is no interest in American law students. Like, I I was American law student, JD, and all my classmates were actually for an LLM. An LLM is a one year master's in law degree you can get, and it's popular with, like, foreigners to come over and it's like foreign lawyers, I should say, and do a one year master's in law in American schools. And most of my like, students in my class, they've actually worked for their foreign trade ministry, and they just came to Georgetown to do So yeah. I mean, there was, like, me and two other American JD students, and it worked out great because I graduated peak great recession, you know, 2010.
But and all my classmates in trade were all going back to their country. And so I I was able to go directly from law school into GE at the height of great recession because I picked this niche. It was a very boring niche for a very long time, a very discouraging niche, until, things really turned around,
[00:02:44] Unknown:
with president Trump. So you're exactly right. I mean, and it is just a wild time. I mean, in every single college in The United States, it is taught that tariffs are bad. You want free trade, and that's what we've always been striving for. But free trade has always been filled with they have tariffs on our goods, but we don't have them, when they bring them in. And so we've been living in this bizarro, pseudo free trade world for quite some time.
[00:03:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. We that's exactly right. People have no idea about the history. The amount of gaslighting is, you know, gaslighting being, like, just like telling people a fake story over and over again until, like, they're forced to believe it. Or, yeah. It's it's actually insane. I I'm very passionate about the history. You know, people don't realize, that we nothing is new under the sun. And in fact, the historical analogy to where we are in 2025 is the 1816 to 1824 time period. That's exactly it. You know, back then, we were very import reliant. We've been up until the war of eighteen twelve. Well, well, Jefferson's embargo act, Napoleonic Wars, and then the war of eighteen twelve. We were a trading nation like we are now.
We had relatively low tariffs, and and it was it was being it was Britain and France taking turns cutting us off from trade and forcing us to learn to be self reliant. They can't that was it. That kind of spawned, the industrialization of The United States, and also the idea that we should protect our farmers, from you know, we gotta look, we gotta feed ourselves. That's vitally important. And that that kicked off after then, and we kind of rode that up. And it's just sort of, like, imagine the planes flying and, you know, it was a little it wasn't like a perfectly smooth cruise, but but, generally, we were holding 30,000 feet of altitude, and then it came crashing down in 1913.
Okay? That's when the income tax was invented. Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hull, who's the father of the income tax, they, you know, they were they prioritized international creditors. So they wiped out our tariffs in 1913. Farmers were destroyed. Okay? Because of what happened? It wiped out our wiped out all our tear our protective tariffs that protected our farmers. Now World War one happened right after, obviously. Right? So we didn't get the flood of imports. And Woodrow Wilson was telling farmers, this is great. You, you we're gonna feed the world. We're gonna feed the world. You heard that line before a bit. Right? We're gonna feed the world, told told all the farmers, leverage up, take on as much debt.
You know, do everything you can to increase output. We're gonna feed the world. They didn't listen to the mess the hard learned lesson that, in fact, countries will only buy our food when they need it. They wanna support their farmers too. Good for them, by the way. And, so what happens, World War one ends, American farmers are more levered than they've ever been. All of a sudden, Europe European agriculture comes roaring back. American farmer they they are the all prices come crashing down. Farmers are wiped out, and they did not get to participate in the roaring twenties. You should your listeners should Google the emergency tariff act of 1921.
You know, I wish our Republican Congress was like, had a a tenth of the ambition of that Republican Congress. They, you know, within two months of that congressional session starting, spring nineteen twenty '21, pardon me, they, or after the twenty election, all of the protective tariffs, on agriculture was restored. We still have the problem that the farmers were over levered and all this debt, but that happened. And from manufacturing, the protective tariffs were restored, and Republicans succeeded in wiping up the income tax for the bottom 98% of, payers and replacing that with tariff revenue.
And now everyone's gonna say, oh, it was Smoot Hawley. Well, that's the that's the mother of all gaslighting. I mean, the Sumuhi had nothing to do with the Great Depression. Nothing. It was a very incremental tariff increase. Right? So we went from total free trade to a protective tariff in '21. In '20 and then in 1922, they expanded it with the Fort Ni McCumber Act. The nineteen twenties the roaring twenties happened because of protective tariffs. Smooth Holley was a very incremental tariff increase at a time when, imports were less than 5% of GDP.
And, and, so I had nothing to do. That that the the Great Depression was a debt crisis and and a monetary crisis. And, you know, don't take my word for it. Listen to Ben Bernanke, who's, you know, actually did as a PhD in this subject. And, yeah. But then, 1934 was year zero. Okay? And that was the year Congress transferred the its tariff authority to the president, and, we've we've never recovered. And tariffs were pretty much wiped out. You know, we people think, oh, the nineteen fifties were great. Not if you're a rancher. Okay? Not if you were a fisherman. Not if you, you know, seafood. And, and, yeah, we've just been it's been a steady decline ever since then. You know, factories don't outsource overnight.
You know, it takes a couple of few generations, but same thing we've seen rural America wiped out. You know, I live in Buffalo, like, Rust Belt wiped out. It's all been a steady decline since that year zero.
[00:08:00] Unknown:
Well, that is what we are gonna talk about tonight is the tariffs that are going on right now. It feels like we are in a revolutionary time, and people might look at the stock market and say that. But, really, it is so many other things are gonna change as a result of this. So tonight, we are gonna talk about what, just we're gonna do a general overview of tariffs, and then we're gonna talk about what cattle ranchers like our calf and then Brett Crosby and how they disagree on the effects of tariff. And then we're also gonna go through a post by Casey Kimbrell, on why farmers, many of them are pro tariff. We're gonna do that. We'll also do a little bit on Bitcoin this week. We're gonna do Charles' Peter Thiel paradox because his worthy adversary, and we're gonna try and do that in just 30.
So right now, the, tariff situation, we are at Thursday, April 10, and so much is moving. Yeah. It's so quickly. You gotta say what the date is because, man, stuff is happening far Right. Fast. US Farmers are reeling from tariffs escalating global trade tension. China slapped an 84% tariff on American goods like soybeans and pork slashing exports down from 30,000,000 tons of soybeans to, to China to maybe just 2,000,000. The EU is also hitting back too with 25 duties on US poultry and nuts, and steel tariffs are jacking up tractor prices potentially by up to 20%. We're watching, fertilizer prices go, but, shockingly, egg prices are down mostly because we are importing eggs. And, there is so much going on that it's barely, it's it's hard to even know where to begin. When you look around at what the big news of the day is, Charles, what what are you paying attention to?
[00:09:41] Unknown:
So, there's two things. Okay. The tariffs have two purposes in the in the American tradition. And then a third, I would say, illegitimate purpose. Purpose revenue and protection. Okay? So on the on the revenue side, it's very clear. The president campaigned on a 10% universal tariff, and we got that. I and and credit to him, he's keeping his promise. That that that should bring in 300,000,000,000 a year, maybe. That's a lot of we're we're used to, like, we're used to congress spending. So maybe it doesn't sound, like, too much on the spending side, but on the revenue side, that's a lot. All corporate income tax is, like, 400,000,000,000. So 300,000,000,000 in in addition new revenue, that's a lot.
You know, for the the bottom half of income taxpayers submit about 50,000,000,000. Okay? So we get like, I mean, you can we get already with that 300,000,000,000. We can, you know, wipe out income tax for, like, the bottom 70%, I don't know, 80%, maybe. So that's the revenue side. Now on the protection side, and this is where, like, farmers and ranchers need to, and I know our CAF is on is on top of this, but the protection side is happening via with something called the section two three two process. Section two three two is the president's section two three two of the trade agreements Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and that authorizes the president to use increased tariffs for national security reasons.
So that's you probably a lot of your customers are aware of the automotive tariff, right, the car tariff, and that's been done via two three two. Similarly, with steel and aluminum, we've got new actions been launched on copper and copper products, timber and wood products, lumber. So that's and then and then automotive. There'll be more of pharmaceuticals is coming next. Noticeably absent is agriculture, so far. So, that's kind of I I think this is good. So kudos to the administration. Revenue, they're doing the universal. I think 10% is a little light. I think they should they should work their way to 20. And then on the protection side, the way to do it, the way to set tariffs is product by product.
So I I a lot of people thought, oh, man. Then why must be really disappointed and upset when the president canceled all those other country tariffs, the the so called reciprocal ones, which I guess was happened two days ago. So,
[00:12:06] Unknown:
I no. Not at all. Not at all. I I I the the back I don't know, man. Like, product by product is gonna become, like, a giant sprawling bureaucracy and administrative,
[00:12:17] Unknown:
like, people being able to go in and No. Tinker at the you don't think so? No. Congress did it. Goo goo I I encourage all your listeners. Google the terra fact of 1789.
[00:12:28] Unknown:
Yeah. But 1789, the the the products that we're bringing in versus now, I mean, like changed. Nothing's changed. Okay. Tell me what Nothing's changed.
[00:12:36] Unknown:
So, literally nothing has changed. Okay? There's nothing new under the sun in trade. Our tariff schedule today has 21 sections. Okay? 21. That's Roman numerals. So, section 21 is works of art, so we can just put that aside. So sections one to 20 are pretty much, like, everything. It's it is everything. And, sections one to five are agriculture. That's it. That's your universe. And it's in agriculture. Nothing has changed. I can tell you. You wanna be give give an example how nothing has changed? The tariff on, like, pork and bacon was set in 1824 at 2¢ a pound.
That remains the tariff today. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. It's it's it's it's a column two. There was not really any inflation in the nineteenth century, so they didn't adjust it for inflation. And then, like I said, nothing's changed. So and and and this was Congress doing it until 1930. Congress would set tariff rates, like, every, you know, decade, every decade and a half, we get a new tariff act. This is the it's literally what the founders intended, article one, section eight of the constitution. And that's it. There's Congress listening to their consumers, listening to their producers, compromising negotiating. There's no there's no bureaucracy. There wasn't until Wilson, you know, in the nineteen tens created the tariff commission, which is a giant failure.
But no. No. We get no. Our we don't even need a bureaucracy. It should be a direct conversation between our members of congress and the constituents.
[00:14:08] Unknown:
Alright. Let's take a look at the way that the cattle industry is weighed in. You mentioned RCAF. So for those that don't know, RCAF is kind of the renegade cattle organization that represents independent cattle ranchers. And today, they came out and said, in the last nine years, total beef imports increased by 44% and beef prices increased by 40%. Meanwhile, The US, census shows that The US has lost another a 7,000 beef cattle producers. And, but this brought on a lot of controversy. The ag podcaster, Matt Del Geshe, replied, you've had six years of herd liquidation and now the lowest herd since 1951. Imports have increased and beef prices are up due to this. It's drought forcing producers out of the game, not imports.
And then, Brett Crosby jumped in. He's a rancher from Wyoming saying, nope. Tariffs are simply a tax that increase prices and reward inefficiency. What do you think of that?
[00:15:05] Unknown:
Com complete nonsense. I mean, I it's not it's it literally everything but soybeans is down. K? Corn. You've I've you know, senator Grassley has been on senate finance for how many decades? And, we've had he's gotten everything he wanted. Okay? NAFTA, the Uruguay round, which that was it. I mean, that would that blew open agriculture. But then since then, I challenge people to go look at the you know, we've done 20 trade agreements since then. Sorry. 12 trade agreements with 20 countries. And for every one of those, look at the statements that were made at the time the trade agreement was gonna was, gonna take place.
And, and then now and then just look at the reality. Just look at the export stats. We've nothing's worked. Soybeans are the only thing that's up. So, for corn, which, you know, I I couldn't even believe it, but we export, less corn now than we did twenty years ago by volume, not even by value. So, like, so we we export less corn, everything. I'm in Florida. Because we want to. Right? We would love to export more. We just people aren't buying it. So the most famous speech in congressional history was, March 1824. Henry Clay, he was the speaker of the house. And what he launched was called the American system. Maybe a lot of listeners learned about that in school. It was a protective tariff, a central bank, and, internal improvements infrastructure.
That speech, he went through every single crop to show that, any over a twenty year period, he compared, like, 1800 to 1824 that, you know, some there's some there's some good export years, but countries will only buy from us what they absolutely need. And that was that that's right. And nothing has changed. So we we might might have some good export years, but countries shut it down as soon as they can. And, yeah. Senator Cantwell, she you know, from Washington state, the Democrat. I mean, she's another one along with Grassley who's championed free trade more than anybody. And, you know, she she champions apples, wheat, cherries, and potatoes.
And we are we export less than we did in 1995, despite all of these new trade agreements that they said would bring big success. So, look, the lesson is don't you don't chase exports. By the way, our population has grown 29% in that period. Right? Our GDP is actually up almost 300%, but, you know, whatever GDP. That's tech. But, yeah. Our population has grown by 29%, and we're exporting less food. Like, the once in the world population has grown by even more. So,
[00:17:50] Unknown:
it doesn't make any sense. Well, this kinda leads right into something that Casey Kimbrell, who's a a great follow on x, what he thinks happened in ag. On this blistering post, he got above, a journalist on x that had posted some things about agriculture. And I'm just gonna read this because I I think it's worthwhile. He says your bio says you write about things related to agriculture, yet one would have to be extremely out of touch not to understand that cheating trade partners have done to American agriculture. Those selling this type of trade promise prosperity, yet decade after decade of American ag has declined.
Chinese cotton mills decimated our domestic milling industry with the promise of buying our production, yet that never came. We were promised open markets for beef imports, but the, that that exceeded our exports. Once vibrant vegetable farms and packing sheds across the country are just a memory slain by cheap imports grown with scant labor and chemical regulations. He goes on and on. It's an excellent post. He's reflecting oh, sorry. I thought I posted what, what he wrote. He's just reflecting what, I think a lot of people are saying. And, Casey, would you say you agree with him? Is he right about ag being sold out right now?
[00:18:58] Unknown:
Ag is a % sold out, but also misled by all their representatives for the most part. I mean, I wish there was more groups like our CAF. I'll I'll say so I agree with him, except I I just we gotta stop using language like cheating, that it implies that in fact there's some great rule book that if we all just follow the rules, everything will be great. No. There's no rule book. There's no level playing field. These these are all mirages. Okay? And, you know, we we just have to focus what Henry Clay said, protect the home market. Don't worry about cheating. Don't talk about level playing field. And if anyone is talking to you about, we need to fight harder for exports, it's a gaslighting. Okay? What they're doing is those people are processors.
They want the cheapest input costs possible. They don't wanna pay they don't want you to be prosperous. They don't want you to have a you know, pasture farm onto your children. They don't want any of these things. They're flipping it. If we fight harder, what do we get? More market access commitments work both ways, more ability to, you know instead of having to pay a shrimper in Louisiana, we'll just use literal slaves, you know, off the Chinese coast. Literal slaves to get the shrimp. That's their game. So don't let anybody talk to you about, we're gonna get more exports, or we're gonna fight for the American farmer. No. We don't fight. Oh, and by the way, the gaslighting I I I don't wanna call you out, Vance, but this is like every time you hear the you you because you're you're in good company. The president's been fooled too. You know, talking about Canadian dairy. Like, if you listen to a ways and means or senate finance committee hearing, you would think America had two existential enemies, the Chinese Communist Party and Canadian dairy farmers.
We have an export surplus with dairy. It's one of a handful. It's one of a handful. K? You know? We run a trade deficit in almost every agricultural crop, and we actually export. And the the reason they hate Canadian dairy so much and I'm talking about the national milk processors. But the reason they hate that is because they they they they have rejected globalization. When NAFTA was renegotiated into USMCA, Canada, to protect their dairy farmers, promised The United States that we wouldn't even export that Canada wouldn't export dairy to third countries. K? That's how hard they went.
You like, we just wanna protect our home, Mark, but that's the right attitude. Protect your farmers, feed yourselves, you know, feed your nation,
[00:21:17] Unknown:
and, and don't chase exports. So, Would you think this, would you have this philosophy if there weren't tariffs by other people? If if there were zero tariffs across, do you believe that the world is better off when we do trade?
[00:21:29] Unknown:
No. It it there's it just doesn't I like, okay. I I you you need a home market. So Hawaii is a great example. Right? We we actually, you know, we we had a we had a a free trade agreement with Hawaii for thirty years before we ended up overthrowing their government and annexing and the and then asking them. And that that actually happened. I don't know. This is congress for us. I'm quoting You're awesome, Charles. Keep going. This is great. Okay. Oh, well, look. Yeah. So, I mean, how Hawaii is, like, the that's the one thing where like, was there ever a good trade agreement in US history? Well, no is the answer. The best one you could maybe point to was the trade agreement with Hawaii.
We did that in 1875, and, you know, we we threw, like, who who suffered? Louisiana? Like, people like, Louisiana and Florida, sugarcane farmers and western sugar beet farmers suffered. Sugar imports from Hawaii increased 1400%. And so you're like, okay. Well, was that was that good? I don't know. We had a substantial sugar tariff, and it was a 2¢ a pound. It was 64¢ a pound today, if we still had it. What we actually do sugar's sugar's the last man standing, by the way. I mean, there's so much I could say. I could talk about sugar for an hour. But, look, Hawaii, we didn't even get it done there. We sacrificed Western sugar beet farmers for a San Francisco San Francisco sugar refiners.
And, and then it was actually that was 1875. Fast forward to 1890, McKinley wants to raise manufactured tariffs on manufactured goods. He he's been he's then chairman of Ways and Means. He's under so much pressure. We gotta cut some other tariff. So what happened, he just cut the tariff on sugar to zero, which destroyed Hawaii, and we started getting all of our sugar from Cuba overnight. Then, and then this the sugar plant just overthrew the queen. And with, you know they they had with some military US military support. So, like, the it's not even like the trade agreement we had with Hawaii led to them being annexed. You know, if anything, it might have stalled the annexation by a couple decades.
Now we got Hawaii in the union. That's great. And, you know, Hawaii was an agricultural powerhouse. We supplied, like, 80% of the world's canned pineapple, you know, but unfortunately, that's all been lost, bananas, you name it, to free trade as well.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
And, I don't know that native Hawaiians are any better for it. I think my deep pushback against this, the thing that I I don't like is that it gives too much power to politicians to pick winners and losers if you have this tariff. It gives them the ability to say, hey. We're gonna make this easier on some people and harder on others or I I don't know. It it doesn't it doesn't feel like it's freedom encouraging. This is a really important point.
[00:24:17] Unknown:
Really important point. So the way tariffs you hear you might hear the term mechanicalism. The way tariffs have been used by literally every other country in the world is to build national champions and anti competitive. We hate that. Free market competition is the most important thing. I'm a conservative. If you don't have free market competition, like, you you have to have that. It's never been that's never using tariffs to protect a monopoly has never been the American tradition. You know, it it was we the the founders we we do want a big internal free trade. So under the articles of Confederation, every state had its own tariff policy. They knew the founders knew that that that didn't work. We we needed a larger internal home market with free trade, the same way Holy Roman Empire. You know, like, it was a million little customs territories. You had to constantly pay duties. It that that that doesn't work. You do need free market competition. Absolutely.
But, you we you just need it under one sovereign. Right? So when in another little we we had a free trade agreement with Canada, in 1854. In 1866, we tore it up, and because it was really bad for America and American farmers in particular and and the main lumber industry. And the Canadian provinces were all, like, they're they weren't a country yet. Oh, sorry. The British provinces that were then, But they merged. So, yeah, if country if provinces wanna merge or if, like, you wanna make a customs union, like, you know, what they did in Europe, that's a different thing. Because there, you've got one entity that can set the rules of the market. But to go back to ranchers, like, yeah, we all love Australia, New Zealand, like, high wage countries or whatever. Right? But, well, they authorize compound ten eighty, and we don't. There's always gonna be something like that. So you you just you it doesn't work. It doesn't work having just going to zero tariffs and saying, we'll let the chips fall where they may. That does not work. Man, you have been sitting outside of the Overton window for your entire career. And just in the last, like,
[00:26:19] Unknown:
two weeks, you've gone from radical to policy. That's like a giant jump because, I mean, the things that you're saying fly in the face of if anyone took a college level economics class, probably even a high school level economics class, this is in total defiance of what the entire country has been taught for as I mean, certainly my entire lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's you know, modern economics is astrology. It's just nonsense. But it I mean, look. Just go to history. Just go to, like, what worked. I I I don't know what to say other than that. Google the tariff act of 1824.
[00:26:51] Unknown:
Look at all those prices, or Google the tariff you know, go more recent. Google the tariff act of 1922. Look at, all those, tariffs,
[00:27:01] Unknown:
and, you know look. These are readable documents. You don't need to be a lawyer or an economist or anything. You can read it and be like, oh, wow. Yeah. That really worked out well. So we have blown through the the regular rigmarole that we do on the Ag Tribes report. But I thought maybe, I would ask you a real quick question about Bitcoin. Where are you at on Bitcoin? Gold has been, like, surging into The United States, but there are no tariffs on Bitcoin. Hard to do that. No. Yeah. We don't, nothing,
[00:27:27] Unknown:
nothing that's digital is tariff. Tariffs only tangible things that show up in a port. Well and and electricity electricity can be tariffed, but that's it.
[00:27:36] Unknown:
And thoughts on Bitcoin? Do you think this will, this is this kind of tariff trade? I mean, we're hearing now big rumors of, Russia and China are now starting to settle some of their oil, their energy, deals in Bitcoin. Any thoughts on
[00:27:51] Unknown:
this? You know, look, a lot of people I really respect, are are very into it. To me, you know, I I think I find Dave Ramsey's line very persuasive. Right? He's just like the sovereign's always gonna sit the currency, when, you know, when Iraq fell and they just they create a new currency, people accept it. So, you know, I like, for me, for Bitcoin to, like, take over to be a big thing, you would have to have, like, total sovereign collapse. And at then at that point, I'm like, well, I hope I'd I'd rather invest my money right now in a chicken coop, if that makes any sense than, you know. But I I I don't I don't I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not so sure you need total sovereign collapse. I think there are a lot of values that that come out of Bitcoin, but I take your point. Moving on to the because I'm super curious, the Peter Thiel paradox.
[00:28:37] Unknown:
What is one thing that you believe that almost no one you know agrees with you on? Which has gotta be basically your entire philosophy.
[00:28:44] Unknown:
Well, yeah. Exactly. I mean, I think no. Well, look. I'm the the president agrees with me on tariffs, so that's pretty good. Yeah. No. But historically, I guess, yeah, the economics is astrology. It's just, like, all these models, it's just complete mumbo jumbo. What I see, the data feeds economics is almost, like, everywhere I look is garbage.
[00:29:02] Unknown:
Not not volumes. But, like, when it once once you get into values, you're talking about, oh, well, look the value of something. Value is just, like, whatever. It's yeah. So You know, I'm I'm gonna give you a straight up, like, I don't know, like, probably the highest one I've ever given, like a nine eight here, but not for your particular one that you said here. But I will say that your, thoughts on, inside of a country, you should have free trade, but outside of a country, you should be setting those. I actually need to sit down and really think about what I believe. There are some, like, core things that I naturally think, but you've you've called into question something that I thought was, natural. So, I mean, bravo. Like, that that's the highest score I've ever known. More.
[00:29:45] Unknown:
Globalization drives consolidation. Okay. So, you know, you you can't have a global antitrust policy. Antitrust has been very important to farmers and ranchers historically. So, you know, there's another one. Globalization drives consolidation. Everyone says, oh, globalization. It's more competition. No. The opposite. You know, if you wanna preserve a competitive market, you have to do it within a sovereign. People are free to come invest here. If you can build a better widget, we want you. And that that that's uniquely American. Lesser countries restricted investment and said, no. We're building a national champion. America's always said, you can build a better widget. Come and build it. So that's the that's American exceptionalism.
[00:30:19] Unknown:
This is somebody that you respect but strongly disagree with?
[00:30:29] Unknown:
California governor Gavin Newsom. That guy is so I just I just I I admire competence. I like, that guy is so awesome. I I enjoy listening to him speak even as I, you know, totally disagree with him. You know, and, like, I I I so enjoy listening to him speak. I couldn't even be mad at his president even though I'd never vote for him.
[00:30:47] Unknown:
That's a that's a very good one. You know, I have I've known a couple con men in my life, and they have, like, a they have a slickness to them. Right? Like, a willingness to say whatever they need to say. And Yeah. I'm I don't think I'm ever gonna wrap my mind around that. Plus, I was living out in California when he got busted for, sleeping with his campaign manager's wife, and his campaign manager was, like, his best friend. And that, like, just kinda disappeared, and you're like, how could you ever trust, somebody that would do that? But I just I I admire, like,
[00:31:17] Unknown:
his confidence, his ambition, and, he's you know, he's got his new podcast now. I whereas I can't tell you how contemptuous I am of your typical Republican legislator. Okay? They're just like, oh, shucks. They're lazy. They're so lazy. And, you know, just, like, phoning it in. No vision. No, like, whatever. Just happy just happy to have their little sinecure. So and then I see someone like Gavin, like, hustling so hard. So I guess that's why I'm just, like, you know, I I I I can respect a very capable and skilled politician.
[00:31:50] Unknown:
Well, Charles, I made a terrible mistake having you on the Ag Tribes Report. I should have waited just another day so you and I could have a long form podcast. So I hope you will come back on Yeah. Definitely. I'd love that. That'd be fun. If, if people wanted to know more about the way you think about things or they think, hey. That's a guy that I want representing my trade interests, where should they go to find out more? Yeah. So, I mean, check out prosperousamerica.org.
[00:32:14] Unknown:
That's, you know, that's our website. But, so that's a great way. Or reach out to me on x. It's charles underscore benoit, b e n o I t.
[00:32:24] Unknown:
Well, thank you so much for coming on, Charles. Alright. So Mother's Day is just four weeks away. And if you've been thinking about getting your mother a gift, I can tell you from my own experience calling up my mother and saying I was gonna pack up all the equipment and go up there to do a mother's or a legacy interview. You will find no better gift. A legacy interview is where I sit down with your loved ones. We do it online or in person, here in our studios, and we record their life stories talking about the things that mattered to them throughout their lives, the experiences that they had, and the lessons that they learned. And then after you're done with that interview, you can play it, while watching it with your parents and their grandchildren. And we get photos of people watching those interviews with their family members, and it is a truly profound thing.
So if you're interested to learn more, go to legacy interviews dot com to find out more. Alright. We will be back next week. I've actually been getting hit up by some people that run some, checkoff organizations that wanna say, hey. We wanna come in and talk about our perspectives, and I look forward to doing that. So alright. As always, feel free to disagree.
Introduction to the Ag Tribes Report
Meet Charles Benoit: Trade Attorney and Advocate
The History of Tariffs and Trade Myths
Current Tariff Landscape and Its Impact
Debate on Tariffs: Perspectives from the Cattle Industry
Misleading Trade Promises and Agricultural Decline
Bitcoin and Tariffs: A New Frontier
The Peter Thiel Paradox: Challenging Economic Norms
Respecting Opponents: A Look at Gavin Newsom
