Photo: Emree Weaver/Bloomberg via Getty Images
If you want the briefest possible explanation of why Democrats lost the presidency and Congress in 2024, it was because swing voters cared a lot about inflation and the politicians running the country decided to talk about everything else. Yes, they had talking points about inflation, but they were mostly defensive (it wasn’t as bad as it had been, it was due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, etc.). And they decided to try to force people to think instead about their issues, such as abortion rights and the threat Donald Trump posed to democracy. It didn’t work.
Now Trump seems to be making the same mistake. Many of his voters expected him to actually reduce prices on groceries and other consumer goods. Instead he’s insisting on waging a trade war that has created all sorts of upward pressure on prices, particularly if they continue and producers are no longer willing to absorb tariff costs. And worse yet, his very highest priority has been a mass-deportation program that is wreaking havoc in the agricultural sector. His own Department of Labor has warned of an impending spike in food prices as a result, as Bloomberg’s Patricia Lopez reports:
“The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens,” the DOL document says, “combined with the lack of an available legal workforce” is “threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for US consumers.” Without swift action, it continues, “agricultural employers will be unable to maintain operations and the nation’s food supply will be at risk.”
The agricultural sector seems to agree. Beth Ford, CEO of Land O’Lakes — the massive, Minnesota-based dairy company — and chair of the National Business Roundtable’s immigration committee, says American farmers face a labor shortage so critical, that unless it is addressed, “it could be a black swan event” …
The White House has had months to think through potential remedies, but harvest season is well underway and there’s still no plan. The farmer bailout Trump mentioned in September also has yet to materialize.
So no: There will be no exemptions from immigration-enforcement measures for the agricultural sector, as was originally signaled, and no, Trump hasn’t followed through on broader relief for farmers to counteract the effects of his tariffs and his administration’s threats to immigrant farmworkers.
This set of priorities excludes the issue that probably elected Trump and that represents his very weakest area, according to every measurement of presidential job performance: the cost of living. Ironically, during the current government shutdown, Democrats in Congress have been gambling that Trump will cut a deal to prevent a high-profile spike in health-insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans because he knows that living costs are his biggest vulnerability. Like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Trump may have concluded he’ll focus on his issues and hope Americans are perpetually distracted from thinking about how hard it is to put food on the table.
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