Statewide Iowa — An economist who monitors Iowa’s farm sector says things would be far worse if the Trump Administration hadn’t given farmers 28 billion dollars in trade relief payments. Iowa State University economist Chad Hart says the farm economy has been struggling for the past five years due to depressed commodity prices.
Hart says one of the lessons Iowa farmers learned from the “farm crisis” of the 1980s was not to get too deep in debt.
Hart says most economists see signs the U.S. economy will dip into recession sometime in 2020.
During the “roaring ’20s” the U.S. economy grew as a 1922 law imposed tariffs on imported goods and Americans increasingly bought U-S made products. Consumer spending currently accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy and Hart says it’ll be up to the U.S. consumer if or when a recession may occur. Hart made his comments during a recent appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program.
