BURLINGTON, VT – U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Senate Agriculture and Senate Finance Committees, joined Vermont Public’s Vermont Edition to discuss how President Trump’s economic policies and have made it harder for Vermont families and farmers to thrive. In his discussion with Vermont Edition host Mikaela Lefrak, Senator Welch outlined how Democrats can work to mitigate harm caused by the president’s war of choice in Iran to bring costs down for hardworking families and farmers.
“Number one—on a macro-level—it really is important to end this war [in Iran], because it’s directly adding to the cost that everybody is paying. It’s having significant impact on our farmers,” said Senator Welch. “Number two, we really have to end the tariffs. Those are two things that are making a very difficult situation almost impossible to sustain. And then third, I want us to pass the Farm Bill. A partial Farm Bill has been passed [through the House], but we have much more to do that is going to help us get through this and stabilize prices for farmers and try to bring down the cost.”
Senator Welch also discussed the economic and humanitarian consequences of President Trump’s deadly war of choice in Iran:
Mikaela Lefrak: “I want to talk about some of those high prices for Americans, including farmers here in Vermont…Regarding the Trump Administration’s actions in Iran on the ground there with their military campaign, do you believe the current administration is responsible for war crimes?”
Senator Welch: “Well, when he is talking about doing massive damage to civilian infrastructure, that’s the definition of a war crime…Civilians are not an appropriate target. Starvation is not an appropriate tactic. Bombing infrastructure, which massively is oriented towards the civilian well-being, like desalinization plants or water plants—those are all what would, in particular circumstances, be considered a war crime. So, it’s very, very sketchy. The bottom line here—this is a war of choice that we should not be in. It is not making us more secure, and it is doing an immense amount of economic harm to everyday Americans.”
Listen to the full episode below:
During the interview, Senator Welch discussed how President Trump’s tariffs have limited farmers’ ability to succeed:
Mikaela Lefrak: “You sit on the Senate Agriculture Committee; you’re also going to be in Addison County [Wednesday] for a listening session, and I imagine many of your constituents there work in agriculture. If somebody asks you: ‘how bad is this going to get, Senator? How high are gas prices and fertilizer prices going to get?’ what will you say?”
Senator Welch: “We don’t know—they’re not sustainable now. We know here in Vermont how tough it is for dairy…That happens to be true all around the country for corn, for soybeans, for oats. The Midwest in particular is getting hammered. And it’s not just [the Strait of] Hormuz that’s having this impact—it’s the Trump tariffs that have done so much damage. Much of our fertilizer comes from Canada, and that’s subject to a tariff. So, these are all self-made harms as a result of the Trump policies. This is extremely painful for our farmers, and it just shocks me that the Trump Administration—that claims it’s for rural America—is doing so much that is causing such harm.”
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