You’re not confused; up is down and white is black

Maybe the reason you see black when people see white or you say “down” when they say “up” is because — in these troubling times — black is white and up is down. Here’s what I mean.

On March 2, according to Reuters, an upbeat President Donald Trump “alerted American farmers to coming U.S. tariffs” on social media.

“To the Great Farmers of the United States:” Trump wrote, “Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!”

Fun isn’t what farmers were having then or are having now. Most, in fact, are having trouble balancing their checkbooks given that the price of almost every “agricultural product” is barely above or already below the cost of raising it.

For example, October bids for central Iowa corn and soybeans on Sept. 15 stood at $3.68 and $9.68 per bushel, respectively.

Both are below the previous five-year average of $4.82 per bushel, down 24%, for corn and $11.46, or 16% less, for soybeans.

And even though the White House remains up while farmers are decidedly down, some farm groups are starting to recognize that down isn’t up anymore.

National Corn Growers Association chief economist Krista Swanson recently told USA Today that the NCGA “is worried tariffs could make the situation worse by driving up the cost of imports and prompting retaliatory action from countries that purchase U.S. corn.”

So, she worries, there’s no fun in sight for corn and, in truth, for soybeans, cotton, wheat, pork and almost anything else U.S. farmers sell overseas.

Also, there’s absolutely no fun now for farmers who are losing thousands of employees to the immigration crackdown happening across rural America.

In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. agriculture workforce fell by 155,000, about 7%, between March and July, according to Politico.

That jibes with Pew Research Center numbers that show “total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July.”

And, Politico added, quoting a Pennsylvania dairy farmer who also serves on that state’s Farm Bureau board, “People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked.”

Really? After decades of bitter political fights over agriculture’s growing dependence on undocumented labor, it’s highly doubtful “people don’t understand” its importance in keeping food on the nation’s dinner tables.

But solving that problem actually solves the problem and in today’s upside-down world of politics, solving problems creates new problems — like losing what’s been an election-winning issue for decades.

It’s made much worse by today’s social media-soaked world where amplification, not accuracy, dominates debate.

For example, on Sept. 15, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told a gathering of state ag directors that “the last four years under the Biden administration were devastating for rural America.”

One good measure of that statement’s veracity is “federal government direct farm program payments” — in short, just how much taxpayer money did the federal government send farmers to cover market shortfalls.

In the first Trump administration, 2017 through 2020, direct payments to farmers totaled $93.2 billion. In the Biden years, 2021 through 2024, farmers received $63.2 billion.

In the first year of the second Trump term, 2025, the federal tab already is an estimated $40.5 billion, or nearly two-thirds of the entire four-year Biden total, and more — much more — is anticipated next year.

But, hey, black is white and up is down. So, let’s just have fun.