WASHINGTON, March 23,
2016 - Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, defending his endorsement of
Donald Trump, famously opined that there are two Trumps -- the bombastic public
version and the more cerebral Trump who in private can converse in detail about
complex policies. Two Iowans who spent some time with the GOP front-runner
talking about farm and ethanol policy say they experienced the second side of
Trump.
Eric Branstad, director
of the ethanol advocacy group America’s
Renewable Future, and Annette Sweeney, a
former Republican state legislator who co-chairs the group, first met with
Trump nearly a year ago in a private box at Des Moines’ downtown minor league
baseball stadium. The only other person in the room was Trump’s Iowa campaign
director Chuck Laudner.
In separate interviews
with Agri-Pulse, Branstad and Sweeney said Trump asked them detailed questions about the ethanol production process,
the biofuel market, the effect of oil prices, and about the use of distillers
grains as cattle feed, something Sweeney and her husband, Dave, do on their
farm.
Sweeney said Trump showed
interest, for example, in how her husband, who majored in animal science,
blends the cattle rations.
“He was asking such good
questions,” said Sweeney, who described for Trump the history of her family’s
farm. “I discussed the different parts of agriculture to where my husband
figures out all the nutritional aspects of feeding cattle. He found out that we
don’t waste any of that kernel of corn when we make ethanol.”
Branstad, who also
observed Trump during a roundtable last November at Poet Biorefining’s Gowrie,
Iowa, ethanol plant, came to like Trump so much that he went to his precinct
caucus Feb. 1 and spoke for him.
“In
a one-on-one conservation or a small group roundtable setting he’s very clear,
and he’s a great listener, and he’s very engaged and part of the conversation,” said Branstad, the son of Iowa’s
Republican governor, Terry Branstad.
“He’s not just there
nodding his head and telling you what you want to hear… He’s straightforward.
He asks great questions… He cares what you’re talking about and what you’re
saying.”
Last September Trump provided
an unequivocal endorsement of the Renewable Fuel Standard in response to a
question at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting. He repeated his
support again in January at an industry meeting.
Sweeney’s take on the
question of whether there are two Trumps is that he essentially plays to his
audience as he needs to: “You’ve got to be on when you’re in front of the
public. You have to watch or do what you think needs to happen when the cameras
are on. But when it comes down to brass tacks and business, that’s not done in
front of the media.”
And when the media tries
to pin him down on specific issues, like trade, the outcome is more uncertain.
On Monday, Trump met with The Washington Post editorial board and trade figured
into several of his answers.
According to the transcript, Trump linked the U.S. trade deficit with
China to unemployment and unrest in inner city America. He also suggested using
trade as leverage against China on national security issues.
Asked at one point about
how the United States should deal with Chinese aggression in the South China
Sea, Trump said:
“We
have power over China and people don’t realize it. We have trade power over
China. I don’t think we are going to start World War III over what they did, it
affects other countries certainly a lot more than it affects us. But… I always
say we have to be unpredictable. We’re totally predictable.”
Asked whether trade could
force China to back off, Trump said, “Well, you start making it tougher.”
China “can easily sell
their product here. No tax, no nothing, just ‘Come on, bring it all in, you
know, bring in your apples, bring in everything you make’ and no taxes whatsoever,
right?”
Trump, who has threatened
to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has been broadly
beneficial to U.S. agriculture, also doubled down in his criticism of Mexico.
“Mexico is really becoming the new China. And I have great issue with that.
Because you know I use in speeches sometimes Ford or sometimes I use Carrier –
it’s all the same: Ford, Carrier, Nabisco, so many of the companies — they’re
moving to Mexico now… We shouldn’t be allowing that to happen.”
#30
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