Donald Trump (audio voiceover): Just to finish, we also have a situation because everyone says, When? When? When are you going to sign deals? We don’t have to sign deals. We can sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we want it. We don’t have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market. We don’t care about their market. They want a piece of our market. We’re going to sit down and we’re going to put very fair numbers down and we’re going to say, Here’s what this country [wants], what we want, and, Congratulations, we have a deal. And they’ll either say, Great, and they’ll start shopping, or they’ll say, Not good. We’re not going to do it. And I’ll say, That’s OK. You don’t have to shop.

Sargent: Matt, the quote that jumps out at me is, “We don’t care about their market.” Here he’s clearly saying, We may never make deals that will dial down the trade war. What do you think farmers who rely on exporting food to international markets are going to make of that?

Hildreth: Yeah, I think that that’s a really good point. When you talk to folks in small towns and rural communities, they’re paying attention to markets. That’s something that you learn when you’re a farmer and you study things like ag economics: It’s all about understanding the markets. And I think sometimes there’s a lot of stereotypes about farmers—that they’re just dumb hayseeds, simple people that sit on tractors all day. Farming is pretty sophisticated. Whether you’re a farm worker working out for the growers in the fields or you’re sitting in a combine, there’s a ton of science and there’s a ton of economics. It’s all economics.