Farmers are warning Trump, but it’s not the kind of warning that sounds like good advice. It’s more like an old-school power play, reminiscent of the antebellum South. Back in the days before the Civil War, South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond famously warned Northern politicians to stay away from slavery—or risk the South shutting down the global economy by withholding cotton. Fast forward to today, and it seems some farmers have learned that playbook well.
Take California farmer Joe Del Bosque, for instance. On Tuesday, he popped up in a report by France 24, sounding the alarm about President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation plan. He warned that mass deportations would deprive the agricultural sector of cheap labor, pushing up food prices for everyone. And he didn’t sugarcoat it: “We can’t have deportations here because it would disrupt our food supply for the country,” Del Bosque said. In other words, if you don’t let us keep our cheap, undocumented workers, food prices are going to skyrocket—and you’ll be to blame.
Del Bosque’s message, while wrapped in a veneer of concern for the country, was crystal clear: keep the labor force as-is, or the cost of food goes through the roof. And, as France 24 pointed out, undocumented migrants make up 44 percent of U.S. agricultural workers. So, in essence, this isn’t about the moral high ground; it’s economic leverage, pure and simple. “Without our people, our farms will come to a stop,” Del Bosque warned, echoing the same kind of economic blackmail the South used to wield in the 1800s.
Does this bode well for the future of American agriculture under Trump? Not if you take Del Bosque’s logic to heart. But then again, farmers like him are just repeating a line that’s been used for centuries. After all, back in 1858, Senator Hammond asked, “Would any sane nation make war on cotton?” implying that the global economy would crumble without the South’s vital cash crop—slavery be damned.
Fast forward to today, and Del Bosque’s comments aren’t quite as morally offensive as the Southern aristocrats of yore, but the attitude is strikingly similar. It’s all about maintaining profits by exploiting cheap labor, and if anyone dares to challenge that, well, they’ll pay the price. This attitude, of course, is alive and well across modern American institutions, as evidenced by recent employment revisions that failed to account for the millions of jobs filled by illegal immigrants.
Trump’s 2024 win shows that Americans are done being pushed around by these threats. The days of putting up with cheap labor exploitation are over. It’s time to reclaim our jobs, our communities, and our country—and we’re not falling for the same old scare tactics anymore.
