Navarro: We’re Using Ethanol to ‘Domesticate’ Corn Demand Because China Cancels Purchases When We Have Tariffs

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro said that the White House is trying “to domesticate, essentially, the demand for corn through the ethanol program.” because whenever there are tariffs on China, China “cancels all its purchases of both corn and soybeans.” And “There’s a companion program to do it with soybeans as well.”

Navarro said, “Think of it this way: Soybean farmers and corn farmers are often the same people. They rotate their crops. They grow a lot of that stuff, and they’ll grow a lot of it in Iowa. And what happens every time President Trump puts tariffs on? China cancels all its purchases of both corn and soybeans. So we’ve got an initiative here at the White House, which is not only to domesticate, essentially, the demand for corn through the ethanol program. There’s a companion program to do it with soybeans as well.”

Navarro continued, “And it’s a high strategic way, and it’s the way the President operates. And it’s going to give farmers — who he always has the back of — a great comfort, and it’s going to be able to liberate, essentially, our tariff policies from the kind of blackmail that China’s practicing.”

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