Former President Donald Trump made a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, putting a spotlight on what his administration did to help farmers and agriculture and what he would do should he win the 2024 election.
"I'm proud to be the most pro-farmer president you've ever had in the White House," Trump said in front of a packed Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, which lies on the Nebraska border, separated by the Missouri River. "We did more for American agriculture than any administration in history by far, and that's been pretty much acknowledged.
"Under my leadership, our Department of Agriculture cut seven old regulations for every new regulation, saving farmers and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year."
Trump said he did more to promote Iowa ethanol than any president before him, issuing an executive order that E15 fuel, which has a mix of gasoline and 10.5% to 15% ethanol, be available year-round, and he increased the number of gasoline stations where E15 can be sold.
"I like to say very strongly and proudly I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history, and ethanol ... like no president," Trump said.
Trump earned his largest round of applause when he said if elected in 2024, "Within hours of my inauguration I will cancel every Biden policy that is brutalizing our farmers and our country. I will end the Biden assault on ethanol; I will end and stop Biden's inflation nightmare."
Trump said tariffs he placed on Chinese goods led to a $28 billion windfall for American farmers.
"When China targeted our farmers — you know about this very well because you were targeted at a level nobody had ever seen before — I gave those farmers $28 billion straight out of the tariffs that I was taking from China," Trump said.
"I got Japan to slash or eliminate tariffs on over 90% of U.S. food and agricultural exports. The European Union agreed to nearly triple its beef imports and opened its markets to American soybeans and other things you people grow so beautifully."
Trump also boasted about policies in which his administration cut taxes to family farms that were pass-through entities — in which the business does not pay income taxes, but the tax is passed through to the owner — and ending the North American Free Trade Agreement in favor of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
He also pointed to his administration repealing an Obama-era clean water regulation in favor of a new rule that gave states more authority to regulate wetlands, streams and smaller bodies of water while defining "navigable waters" under the Clean Water Act as large rivers and lakes.
"It was a truly outrageous federal power grab over every ditch and over every puddle on private land," Trump said.
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