American agricultural subsidies, particularly those on sugar and cotton, really are obscene. They are also totally unnecessary. 60% of the crops grown in the US receive 3% of the subsidies. Even within the 40% that gets 97% of the subsidies (around $18 billion a year) the subsidies are concentrated among a very small number of beneficiaries, and these guys don't have dirt under their nails. The stuff we hear about subsidies supporting small farmers is complete bullshit.
It's not just the US, either. The EU is worse, and Japan is as bad as we are. For the developing world, it's an impossible situation: we send them agricultural advisors and lend them money to develop cash-crop agriculture. Then we won't let them sell the products. Then we wonder why the loans don't get paid.
I wrote this in a letter a little while back. I wish we'd do it...
If we really want to nail the French, we should forget about wine and cheese boycotts. Instead, we should announce that we feel the pain of the poor nations so acutely that we are willing to take some of that pain upon ourselves, and that we have believe that the people in the 3rd world are more in need of a fair economic opportunity than doleouts. We would express these sentiments in concrete form by removing all US agricultural subsidies. Then, of course, we would invite the EU in general and the French in particular to demonstrate their commitment to the 3rd world by doing the same. We might even drop a hint that since our 3rd world allies haven’t enough economic clout to fight a trade war, we are willing to put ours at their disposal, and apply sanctions to countries who refused to grant the right of fair competition to agricultural exports from the developing world.
This would cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth in French political circles. American agriculture can compete without subsidy. 60% of American subsidies go to only 3 percent of the crops raised, and even within these crops the subsidies are highly concentrated. The number of actual recipients is quite small, and most of them are sufficiently well padded to endure a bit of shock, having nursed prodigiously at the public teat for a long time. I’m not suggesting that we should let anyone starve, but the US economy is large enough that we can afford to place a solid safety net under anyone who might suffer serious consequences.
The French agricultural sector, on the other hand, has refined parasitism to an art of positively Gallic proportions, and probably could not survive without subsidy. Neither would they drift quietly into the dark night of well deserved economic irrelevance. That would give the French Government a choice between surrendering all claim to enlightened leadership of the world’s poor and watching irate farmers strew cowshit up and down the Champs Elysee. Short of officially classifying the sneer as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, I can think of no better revenge that those offended by the ferocity of the French taunting could take.
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