Ag Tribes Report: Ag is all over the place on tariffs with @Charles_Benoit

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. This Mother's Day. Honor your parents with the opportunity to tell their stories and share the wisdom they've learned along the way. Welcome to the Ag Tribes report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host, Vance Crowe. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin. Welcome to the Ag Tribes Report. I'm your host, Vance Crowe. Each week I bring on a co-host to represent the perspectives of one of the many Ag tribes that collectively make up US and Canadian agriculture. This week we are doing something a little bit different. We have Charles Benoit. Charles is a trade attorney and trade counsel for the Coalition for Prosperous America in DC He champions domestic producers and a protective tariff policy. He holds a BA from Western Ontario representing our Canadian listeners and a JD from Georgetown. He's advised the European Commission and work with General Electric representing businesses before federal courts and the US Trade Commission. He is a vocal critic of globalist trade myths, and he is a respected expert in trade par in tariff policy. So Charles, welcome to the Ag Tribes report. Thanks

Guest [00:01:27] For having me. Vance,

Vance Crowe [00:01:28] Man, this is the time that you have been living for. This has to be the wildest time of all for somebody like you.

Guest [00:01:35] Yeah, so that that's actually exactly right. I, you know, I actually, I got into tariffs and trade, you know, right outta law school at Georgetown. If you wanna, if you want, there's only two cities in the world if you really wanna get into trade policy, it's DC and Geneva. Those are the two cities to be in. And I found myself in DC at Georgetown with all the best people. And I mean, there is no interest in American law students like I, I was an American law student, jd, and all my classmates were actually foreign. LLM and LLM is a one year master's in law degree. You can get, and it's popular with like foreigners to come over and like foreign lawyers, I should say, and do a one year master's in law in American schools. And most of my co like students in my class, they've actually worked for their foreign trade ministry and they just came to Georgetown to do so. Yeah, I mean, it was like me and two other American JD students and it worked out great. 'cause I graduated peak great recession, you know, 2010. But, and all my classmates in trade were all going back to their country. And so I, I was able to go directly from law school into GE at the height of great the recession because I picked this niche. It was a very boring niche for a very long time. A very discouraging niche until things really turned around with President Trump. So you're exactly right.

Vance Crowe [00:02:46] I mean, and it, it is just a wild time. I mean, in, in every single college in the United States, it is taught that tariffs are bad. You want free trade, and that's what we've always been striving for. But free trade has always been filled with, they have tariffs on our goods, but we don't have them when they bring them in. And so we've been living in this bizarro, pseudo free trade world for quite some time.

Guest [00:03:08] Yeah, yeah, we that's exactly right. People have no idea about the history, the amount of gaslighting is, you know, gaslighting being like, just like telling people a fake story over and over again until like they're forced to believe it or, yeah, it's, it's actually insane. I, I'm very passionate about the history. You know, people don't realize that we, nothing is new under the sun. And in fact, the historical analogy to where we are in 2025 is the 1816 to 1824 time period. That's exactly it. You know, back then we were very import reliant. We'd been up until the war of 1812, well, well, Jefferson em, Barac and Napoleon Wars, and then the war of 1812, we were a trading nation like we are now. We had relatively low tariffs. And, and it was, it was being, it was Britain and France taking turns, cutting us off from trade and forcing us to learn to be self-reliant. The kind that was it that kind of spawned the industrialization of the United States. And also the idea that we should protect our farmers from, you know, we've gotta, we gotta feed ourselves. That's vitally important. And that, that kicked off after then, and we kind of rode that up. And it's a sort of like, imagine the planes flying and, you know, it was a little, it wasn't like a perfectly smooth cruise, but, but generally we were holding 30,000 feet of altitude and then it came crashing down in 1913. Okay? That's when the income tax was invented.

Guest [00:04:39] Woodrow Wilson and Cordell Hall, who's the father of the income tax, they, they were, they prioritized international creditors. So they wet debt. Our tariffs in 1913, farmers were destroyed. Okay? 'cause of what happened. It wiped out our, wiped out all our tar, our protective tariffs that protected our farmers. Now, world War I happened right after, obviously, right? So we didn't get the flood of imports. And Woodrow Wilson was telling farmers, this is great. You, you we're gonna feed the world, we're gonna feed the world. You heard that line before, I bet, right? You're gonna feed the world, told, told all the farmers, leverage up, take on as much debt, you know, do everything you can to increase output. We're gonna feed the world. They didn't listen to the mess, the hard learn lesson that in fact, countries will only buy our food when they need it. They wanna support their farmers too. Good for them, by the way. And so what happens, world War I ends, American farmers are more levered than they've ever been. All of a sudden, Europe, European agriculture comes roaring back. American farmers. They, they are the, all prices come crashing down. Farmers are wiped out. And they did not get to participate in the roaring twenties. You should, your listeners should Google the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921. You know, I wish our Republican Congress was like, had an a 10th of the ambition of that Republican Congress. They, you know, within two months of that congressional session, starting spring 19, 20 21, pardon me, they, or after the 20 election, all the protective tariffs on agriculture were restored.

Guest [00:06:14] We still had the problem that the farmers were over-levered and all this debt, but that happened. And from manufacturing, the protective tariffs were restored. And Republicans succeeded in wiping out the income tax for the bottom 98% of payers and replacing that with tariff revenue. And now everyone's gonna say, oh, well what's Holly? Well, that's the, that's the mother of all gas lighting. I mean, the Summa Hawley had nothing to do with the Great Depression, nothing. It was a very incremental tariff increase, right? So we went from total free trade to a protective tariff in 21. In 20. And then in 1922, they expanded it with the 40 McCumber Act. We, the 1920s, the Roaring twenties happened because of protective tariffs. Sammu Hawley was a very incremental tariff increase at a time when imports were less than 5% of GDP. And, and so it had nothing to do that, that the, the Great Depression was a debt crisis and, and a monetary crisis. And, you know, don't take my word for it. Listen to Ben Bernanke, who's, you know, actually did this, a PhD in the subject. And yeah. But then 1934 was year zero. Okay? And that was the year Congress transferred the tar its tariff authority to the president. And we've, we've never recovered. And tariffs were pretty much wiped out. You know, we people think, oh, the 1950s were great. Not if you're a rancher, okay? Not if you were a fisherman. Not if you, you know, seafood. And, and yeah, we've just been, it's been a steady decline ever since then. You know, factories don't outsource overnight, you know, picks up few generations.

Guest [00:07:48] But same thing. We've seen rural America wiped out, you know, I least to live in Buffalo, like rust Belt wiped out. It's all been a steady decline since that year zero.

Vance Crowe [00:07:59] Well that is what we are gonna talk about tonight, is the tariffs that are going on right now. It feels like we are in a revolutionary time. And people might look at the stock market and say that, but really it is. So many other things are gonna change as a result of this. So tonight we are gonna talk about what just, we're gonna do a general overview of tariffs, and then we're gonna talk about what cattle ranchers like our calf, and then Brett Crosby and how they disagree on the effects of tariffs. And then we're also gonna go through a post by Casey Kimbrell on why farmers, many of them are pro tariff. We're gonna do that. We'll also do a little bit on Bitcoin this week. We're gonna do Charles's Peter Teel paradox, 'cause that's sure to be good. And we're gonna discuss his worthy adversary. And we're gonna try and do that in just 30 minutes. So right now, the tariff situation, we are at Thursday, April 10th. And so much is moving. It's so quickly, you gotta say what the date is because man, stuff is happening far fast. That's us farmers are reeling from tariffs escalating global trade tension. China slapped an 84% tariff on American goods like soybeans and pork slashing exports down from 30 million tons of soybeans to, to China to maybe just 2 million. The EU is also hitting back two with 25% duties on US poultry and nuts and steel tariffs are jacking up tractor prices potentially by up to 20%. We're watching fertilizer prices go, but shockingly, egg prices are down mostly 'cause we are importing eggs. And there is so much going on that it's barely, it's, it's hard to even know where to begin.

Vance Crowe [00:09:35] When you look around at what the big news of the day is, Charles, what, what are you paying attention to?

Guest [00:09:41] So there's two things, okay? There, tariffs have two purposes in the, in the American tradition, and then a third, I would say illegitimate purpose, purpose, revenue, and protection. Okay? So on the, on the revenue side, it's very clear the president campaigned on a 10% universal tariff. And we got that. I, and, and credit to him, he's keeping this promise that, that that should bring in 300 billion a year maybe. That's a lot of, we are, we're used to like, we're used to Congress spending. So maybe it doesn't send like too much on the spending side, but on the revenue side, that's a lot. All corporate income tax is like 400 billion. So 300 billion in, in addition new revenue. That's a lot. You know, for the, the bottom half of income tax payers submit about 50 billion. Okay? So we could like, I mean, you can, we could already, with that 300 billion, we can, you know, wipe out income tax for like the bottom 60, 70%, I don't know, 80% maybe. So that's the revenue side. Now, on the protection side, and this is where like farmers and ranchers need to, and I know our AF is on, is on top of this, but the protection side is happening via something called the section 2 3, 2 process. Section 2 3, 2 is the president's section 2, 3, 2 of the trade agreements, trade expansion act of 1962. And that authorizes the president to use increased tariffs for national security reasons. So that's, you probably, a lot of your customers are aware of the automotive tariff, right?

Guest [00:11:11] The car tariff. And that's been done via 2 3, 2. Similarly with steel and aluminum, we've got new actions been launched on copper and copper products, timber and wood products, lumber. So that's, and then in an automotive, there'll be more pharmaceuticals is coming next. Noticeably absent is agriculture so far. So that's kind of, I, I think this is good. So kudos to the administration revenue. They're doing the universal, I think 10% is a little light. I think they should, they should work their way to 20. And then on the protection side, the way to do it, the way to set tariffs is product by product. So I, I, a lot of people thought, oh man, Benoit must be really up, disappointed and upset when the president canceled all those other country tariffs. The, the so-called reciprocal ones, which I guess was happened two days ago. So I, not at all, not at all. I, I I, the, the battle, I,

Vance Crowe [00:12:10] I don't know man, like, product by product is gonna become like a giant sprawling bureaucracy and no administrative, like, no people being able to go in and

Guest [00:12:19] No

Vance Crowe [00:12:19] Tinker at the, you don't think so?

Guest [00:12:21] No, Congress did go go, I, I encourage all your listeners Google the tariff act of 1789. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:12:27] But 1789, the, the, the products, nothing changed that we're bringing in versus now. I mean, like,

Guest [00:12:32] Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed.

Vance Crowe [00:12:33] Okay, tell me more.

Guest [00:12:34] Nothing's changed. So literally nothing has changed. Okay? There's nothing new under the sun and trade. Our terra schedule today has 21 sections. Okay? 21. That's Roman numerals. So section 21 is works of art. So we can just put that aside. So sections one to 20 are pretty much like everything. It's, it is everything. And sections one to five are agriculture. That's it. That's your universe. And it's, that's agriculture. Nothing's changed. I can tell you if you wanna me give, give an example how nothing has changed. The tariff on like pork and bacon was set in 1824 at 2 cents a pound. That remains the tariff today. Nothing has changed, nothing has changed. It's, it's, it's, it's a column two. There was not really any inflation in the 19th century. So they didn't adjust it for inflation. And then, like I said, nothing's changed. So, and, and, and this was congress doing it until 1930. Congress would set tariff rates like every, you know, decade, every decade and a half would get a new tariff act. This is the, it's literally what the founders intended. Article one, section eight of the Constitution. And that's it. Just Congress listening to their consumers, listening to their producers compromise and negotiating. There's no bureau, there was no bureaucracy. There wasn't until Wilson, you know, in the 1910s created the tariff commission, which is a giant failure. But no, no, we get no our, we don't even need a bureaucracy. It should be a direct conversation between our members of Congress and the constituents.

Vance Crowe [00:14:07] Alright, let's take a look at the way that the cattle industry is weighed in. You mentioned R calf. So for those that don't know, R calf is kind of the renegade cattle organization that represents independent cattle ranchers. And today they came out and said, in the last nine years, total beef imports increased by 44%, and beef prices increased by 40%. Meanwhile, the US census shows that the US has lost another 107,000 beef cattle producers. And, but this brought on a lot of controversy. The ag podcaster, Matt Delhi replied, you've had six years of herd liquidation and now the lowest herd since 1951, imports have increased and beef prices are up due to this. It's drought forcing producers outta the game, not imports. And then Brett Crosby jumped in, he's a rancher from Wyoming saying, Nope, tariffs are simply attacks that increase prices and reward inefficiency. What do you think of that

Guest [00:15:05] Com complete nonsense. I mean, I it's not, it's, it literally everything. But soybeans is down. Okay, corn, you've, I've, you know, Senator Grassley has been on Senate Finance for how many decades, and we've had, he's gotten everything he wanted. Okay? Nafta, the Uruguay round, which that was it. I mean, that, that blew open agriculture. But then since then, I challenge people to go look at the, you know, we've done 20 trade agreements since then, sorry, 12 trade agreements with 20 countries. And for every one of those, look at the statements that were made at the time. The trade agreement was gonna, was gonna take a place and, and then, and then just look at the reality. Just look at the export stats. We've, nothing's worked. Soybeans are the only thing that's up. So for corn, which, you know, I, I couldn't even believe it, but we export less corn now than we did 20 years ago by volume, not even by value. So like, so we, we export less corn, everything. I'm in

Vance Crowe [00:16:14] Florida, but that's not 'cause we want to, right? We would love to export more. We just, people aren't buying it.

Guest [00:16:19] So the most famous speech in congressional history was March, 1824. Henry Clay, he was the speaker of the house. And what he launched what's called the American system. Maybe a lot of you listeners learned about that in school. It was a protective tariff, a central bank and internal improvements infrastructure. That speech, he went through every single crop to show that, oh, any over a 20 year period, he compared like 1800 to 1824. That, you know, some, there's some, there's some good export years, but countries will only buy from us what they absolutely need. And that was that. That's right. And nothing has changed. So we, we might have some good expert years, but country shut it down as soon as they can. And yeah, Senator Cantwell, she, you know, from Washington state, the Democrat, I mean, she's another one along with Grassley champion free trade more than anybody. And you know, she, she champions apples, wheat, cherries and potatoes. And we are, we export less than we did in 1995, despite all of these new trade agreements that they said would bring big success. So look, the lesson is don't you don't chase exports. By the way, our population has grown 29% in that period, right? Our GDP is actually up almost 300%, but you know, whatever GDP, that's tech. But yeah, our population has grown by 29% and we're exporting less food. Like the what's in the world population has grown by even more. So it doesn't make any sense.

Vance Crowe [00:17:51] Well, this kinda leads right into something that Casey Kimbrell, who's a, a great follow on x what he thinks happened in ag on this blistering post. He got above a journalist on X that had posted some things about agriculture. And I'm just gonna read this 'cause I I think it's worthwhile. He says, your bio says you write about things related to agriculture, yet one would have to be extremely out of touch. Not to understand that cheating trade partners have done to American agriculture. Those selling this type of trade promised prosperity, yet decade after decade of American ag has declined. Yeah, Chinese cotton mills decimated our domestic milling industry with the promise of buying our production. Yet that never came. We were promised open markets for beef imports, but that, that that exceeded our exports. Once vibrant vegetable farms and packing sheds across the country are just a memory slain by cheap imports, grown with scant labor and chemical regulations. He goes on and on. It's an excellent post. He's reflecting, oh, sorry, I thought I posted what, what he wrote. He's just reflecting what I think a lot of people are saying. And Casey, would you say you agree with him? Is he right about ag being sold out right now?

Guest [00:18:57] I ag is a hundred percent sold out, but also misled by all their representatives for the most part. I mean, I wish there was more groups like our calf, I, I'll say so I agree with him except I, I just, we gotta stop using language like cheating that it implies that in fact, there's some great rule book that if we all just followed the rules, everything would be great. No, there's no rule book. There's no level playing field. These are all mirage. Okay? And you know, we, we just have to focus what Henry Clay said, protect the home market. Don't worry about cheating, don't talk about level playing field. And if anyone is talking to you about we need to fight harder for exports, it's a gaslighting, okay? What they're doing is those people are processors. They want the cheapest input costs possible. They don't want to pay, they don't want you to be prosperous. They don't want you to have a, you know, pass your farm onto your children. They don't want any of these things. They're flipping it. If we fight harder, what do we get? More market access commitments for both ways. More ability to, you know, instead of having to pay a shrimper for in Louisiana, we'll just use literal slaves, you know, off the Chinese coast, literal slaves to get the shrimp. That's their game. So don't let anybody talk to you about we're gonna get more exports or we're gonna fight for the American farmer. No, we don't fight. Oh, and by the way, the gaslighting, I I, I don't wanna call you up Vance, but this is like, every time you hear the, you, you, because you're, you're in good company. The president's been fooled too, you know, talking about Canadian dairy. Like if you listen to a ways and means or Senate finance committee hearing, you would think America had two existential enemies.

Guest [00:20:30] The Chinese Communist Party and Canadian dairy farmers. We haven't export surplus with dairy. It's one of a handful. It's one of a handful. Okay. You know, we run a trade deficit in almost every agricultural crop, and we actually export. And they, the reason they hate Canadian dairy so much, I'm talking about the National Milk processors. But the reason they hate that is because they, they, they, they have rejected globalization. When NAFTA was renegotiated into U-S-M-C-A Canada to protect their dairy farmers promised the United States that we wouldn't even export the Canada wouldn't export dairy to third countries. Okay? That's how hard they went. Like, we just wanna protect our home market. But that's the right attitude. Protect your farmers, feed yourselves, feed, you know, feed your nation and, and don't chase exports. So

Vance Crowe [00:21:19] Would you think this, would you have this philosophy if there weren't tariffs by other people? If, if there were zero tariffs across, do you believe that the world is better off when we do trade?

Guest [00:21:29] No, it, there's, there's, it just doesn't, like, okay, I I, you you need a home market. So Hawaii's a great example, right? We, we actually, you know, we, we had a, we had a, a free trade agreement with Hawaii for 30 years before we ended up overthrowing their government and annex in and the, and anning them. And that that actually happened. I don't, this is congress for, it's I'm Quoing

Vance Crowe [00:21:52] Congress. You're awesome, Charles. Keep going. This is great. Okay,

Guest [00:21:56] Well look, yeah, so I mean, how Hawaii is like the, that's the one thing where like, was there ever a good trade agreement in US history? Well, no, is the answer, the best one you could maybe point to was the trade agreement with Hawaii. We did that in 1875. And you know, we, we threw a, like who, who suffered Louisiana? Like peoples, like Louisiana and Florida cane farmers and western sugar beet farmers suffered sugar imports from Hawaii increased 1400%. And so you're like, okay, well was that, was that good? I don't know. We had a substantial sugar tariff and it was a 2 cents a pound was 64 cents a pound today, if we still had it. Well, we actually do sugar's. Sugar's. The last man standing by the way, I, man, there's so much I could say, I could talk about sugar for an hour, but look, Hawaii, we didn't even get it done there. We sacrificed western sugar beet farmers for San Francisco, San Francisco sugar refiners. And, and then it was actually, that was 1875. Fast forward to 1890, McKinley wants to raise manufactured tariffs on manufactured goods. He, he's been, he's been chairman of ways and means he's under so much pressure, we gotta cut some other tariff. So what happened, he just cut the tariff on sugar to zero, which destroyed Hawaii. And we started getting all of our sugar from Cuba overnight then. And then this, the sugar plant was overthrew the queen. And with, you know, they, they had with some military US military support. So like the, it's not even like the trade agreement we had with Hawaii led to them being annexed.

Guest [00:23:31] It, you know, if anything it might've stalled annexation by a couple decades. Now we got Hawaii in the union. That's great. And you know, Hawaii was an agricultural powerhouse. We supplied like 80% of the world's canned pineapple, you know, but unfortunately that's all been lost bananas, you name it to free trade as well. And I don't know that na native Hawaiians are any better for it.

Vance Crowe [00:23:53] I think my deep pushback against this, the thing that I I don't like is that it gives too much power to politicians to pick winners and losers. If you have this tariff, it gives them the ability to say, Hey, we're gonna make this easier on some people and harder on others, or i, I don't know. It doesn't,

Guest [00:24:12] It doesn't feel like

Vance Crowe [00:24:12] It's freedom. Encouraging.

Guest [00:24:14] This is a really important point, really important point. So the way tariffs, you, you might hear this term mechanism, the way tariffs have been used by literally every other country in the world is to build national champions an anti-competitive that we hate that free market competition is the most important thing. I'm a conservative. If you don't have free market competition like you, you have to have that. It's never been, that's never using tariffs to protect a monopoly has never been the American tradition. You know, it, it was, we, the, the founders, we, we do want a big internal free trade. So under the articles of Confederation, every state had its own tariff policy. They, the founders knew that, that that didn't work. We needed a larger internal home market with free trade the same way Holy Roman Empire, you know, like it was a million little customs territories. You had to constantly paying duties. It that doesn't work. You do need free market competition. Absolutely. But you, we, you just need it under one sovereign, right? So when in another little, we, we had a free trade agreement with Canada in 1854. In 1866, we tore it up and because it was really bad for America and American farmers in particular, and, and the main lumber industry and the Canadian provinces were all like, they, they weren't a country yet. Oh, sorry. The British provinces that were then, but they merged. So yeah, if, if country, if provinces wanna merge or if like you wanna make a customs union like, you know, what they did in Europe, that's a different thing because there you've got one entity that can set the rules of the market.

Guest [00:25:53] But to go back to ranchers, like, yeah, we all love Australia and New Zealand, like high wage countries or whatever, right? But well, they authorize compound 10 80 and we don't, there's always gonna be something like that. So you, you just, you, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Having just going to zero tariffs and saying, we'll let the chips fall where they may, that does not work,

Vance Crowe [00:26:11] Man. You have been sitting outside of the Overton window for your entire career and just in the last like two weeks you've gone from radical to policy. That's like a giant jump because I mean, the things that you're saying fly in the face of, if anyone took a college level economics class, probably even a high school level economics class, this is in total defiance of what the entire country has been taught for as, I mean, certainly my entire lifetime.

Guest [00:26:39] Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean it's, you know, modern economics is astrology. It's just nonsense. But it, I mean, look, just go to history. Just go to like what worked, I, I, I don't know what to say other than that. Google the tariff Act of 1824, look at all those prices or Google the tariff, you know, go more recent, Google the Tariff Act of 1922, look at all those tariffs and you know, look, these are readable documents. You don't need to be a lawyer or an economist or anything. You can read it and be like, oh wow, yeah, that really worked out well.

Vance Crowe [00:27:07] So we have blown through the, the regular rigamarole that we do on the ag tribes report. But I thought maybe I would ask you a real quick question about Bitcoin. Where are you at on Bitcoin? Gold has been sur like surging into the United States, but there are no tariffs on Bitcoin. Hard to do that.

Guest [00:27:24] Nope. Yeah, we don't, nothing, nothing that's digital as tariffs. Tariffs only tangible things that show up in a port. Well, and, and electricity. Electricity can be tariffed, but that's it.

Vance Crowe [00:27:35] And thoughts on Bitcoin, do you think this will, this is this kind of tariff trade? I mean, we're hearing now big rumors of Russia and China are now starting to settle some of their oil, their energy deals in Bitcoin. Any thoughts on this?

Guest [00:27:51] You know, look, a lot of people I really respect are, are very into it to me. You know, I I I think I find Dave Ramsey's line very persuasive, right? It's just like the sovereign's always gonna set the currency when, you know, when Iraq fell and they just, they create a new currency and people accept it. So, you know, I like for me, for Bitcoin to like take over to be a big thing, you would have to have like total sovereign collapse. And at then at that point, I'm like, well, I hope I, I'd rather invest my money right now in a chicken coop, if that makes any sense than, you know, but I, I, I don't look, I don't, I don't know, I,

Vance Crowe [00:28:26] Yeah, I'm not so sure you need total sovereign collapse. I think there are a lot of values that, that come outta Bitcoin. But I take your point. Moving on to the, 'cause I'm super curious, the Peter Teel paradox, what is one thing that you believe that almost no one, you know, agrees with you on, which has gotta be basically your entire philosophy?

Guest [00:28:44] Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, I think, no, well look, I'm the, the, the president agrees with me on tariffs, so that's pretty good. Yeah, no, but historically, I guess, yeah, the economics is astrology. It's just like all these models, it's just complete mom jumbo. What I see is the data feeds economics is almost like everywhere I look is garbage. Not not volumes, but like, when once, once you get into values and you're talking about, oh, well look, the value of something value is just like whatever. It's, you know, so, you

Vance Crowe [00:29:11] Know, I'm, I'm gonna give you a straight up like, I don't know, like pro probably the highest one I've ever given like a nine, eight here. But not for your particular one that you said here. But I will say that your thoughts on inside of a country, you should have free trade, but outside of a country, you should be setting those. I actually need to sit down and really think about what I believe. There are some like, core things that I naturally think, but you've, you've called into question something that I thought was natural. So I mean, bravo. Yeah, like that, that's the highest score I've ever heard. I

Guest [00:29:43] Hear one more globalization drives consolidation. Okay, so, you know, you, you can't have a global antitrust policy. Antitrust has been very important to farmers and ranchers historically. So, you know, there's another one, globalization drives consolidation. Everyone says, oh, globalization, that's more competition. No, the opposite. You know, if you wanna preserve a competitive market, you have to do it within a sovereign. People are free to come invest here. If you can build a better widget, we want you. And that, that, that's uniquely American, lesser countries restricted investment and said, no, we're building a national champion. America's always said, you can build a better widget, come and build it. So that's the American exceptionalism.

Vance Crowe [00:30:18] This is absolutely brilliant. Alright, and then the final section, the worthy adversary, who is somebody that you respect but strongly disagree with?

Guest [00:30:28] California Governor Gavin Newsom. That guy is, so I just, I just re I admire competence. I like that guy is so awesome. I I enjoy listening to him speak even as I, you know, totally disagree with him. You know, and like, I, I, I so enjoy listening to him speak. I couldn't even be mad he's president, even though I'd never vote for him.

Vance Crowe [00:30:47] That's a, that's a very good one. You know, I, I've known a couple conmen in my life and they have like a, they have a slickness to them, right? Like a willingness to say whatever they need to say. And I'm, I don't think I'm ever gonna wrap my mind around that. Plus I was living out in California when he got busted for sleeping with his campaign manager's wife and his campaign manager was like his best friend. And that like, just kind of disappeared. And you're like, how could you ever trust somebody that would do that?

Guest [00:31:14] But I just, I, I admire like his competence, his ambition, and he's, you know, he is just got this new podcast now. I, whereas I can't tell you how contemptuous I am of your typical Republican legislator, okay? They're just like, ah, shucks, they're lazy. They're so lazy. And, you know, just like phoning it in no vision, no like, whatever, just happy, just happy to have their little sinecure. So, and then I see someone like Gavin like, hustling so hard. So I guess that's why I'm just like, you know, I, IIII can respect a very capable and skilled politician.

Vance Crowe [00:31:49] Well, Charles, I made a terrible mistake having you on the Ag tribes report. I should have waited just another day. So you and I could have a long form podcast, so I hope you will come back on again.

Guest [00:32:00] Yeah, definitely. I'd love, that'd be fun.

Vance Crowe [00:32:02] If, if people wanted to know more about the way you think about things or they think, Hey, that's a guy that I want representing my trade interests, where should they go to find out more?

Guest [00:32:11] Yeah, so I mean, check out prosperous america.org. That's, you know, that's our website, but so that's a great way. Or reach out to me on X. It's Charles Benoit, B-E-N-O-I-T.

Vance Crowe [00:32:24] Well thank you so much for coming on, Charles. Alright, so Mother's Day is just four weeks away. And if you've been thinking about getting your mother a gift, I can tell you from my own experience, calling up my mother and saying I was gonna pack up all the equipment and go up there to do a mother's or a legacy interview, I, you will find no better gift. A legacy interview is where I sit down with your loved ones. We do it online or in person here in our studios, and we record their life stories, talking about the things that mattered to them throughout their lives, the experiences that they had and the lessons that they learned. And then after you're done with that interview, you can play it while watching it with your parents and their grandchildren. And we get photos of people watching those interviews with their family members and it is a truly profound thing. So if you're interested to learn more, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. All right, we will be back next week. I've actually been getting hit up by some people that run some checkoff organizations that wanna say, Hey, we want to come in and talk about our perspectives. And I look forward to doing that. So, all right, as always, feel free to disagree.