Actaea

The Issue

Farmers throughout the country are threatening a nationwide strike, because their domestic produce cannot compete with cheap foreign imports. They demand that the government step in and protect the agricultural sector.
The Debate

"Foreign competition is slowly destroying us!" yells Efthamia Strange while waving a pitchfork. "We invest so much effort and time to get a quality yield, and eventually we end up throwing everything away because those cheap, plastic Arkondian tomatoes are sold for half the price! I swear they taste like compost wrapped in iceburg lettuce, and yet Rex Ventorumians still buy the damned things! We, the farmers of Rex Ventorum, demand agricultural subsidies so we can lower our prices and compete fairly with imports. After all, our food security depends upon domestic production."

Economic analyst Barack O'Bannon has other ideas. "There's an easier way to support farmers without spending millions on farms that never went beyond ox plowing. Just raise tariffs. Agriculture will be protected from a transnational race to the bottom, and Rex Ventorumians get a little tax cut to boot. The tariffs will be unpopular abroad, but this conundrum only exists because of Arkondia's long history of protectionism."

"Are these people serious?" scoffs Dave Shiomi, owner of A Whole Shipload, LLC. "Subsidies, tariffs, what is all that about? You're messing with the free market here! If foreign produce is cheaper, then that means they're better at doing their jobs. These ungrateful peasants just want government coddling, because they can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's time that Rex Ventorum promote personal responsibility instead of pandering to the weak. Crush the strike by abolishing all foodstuff tariffs, and then we can import as much as we like."