Trump's Trade War Helped Light The Amazon Fires

While nitwit negotiator Donald "The Chosen One" Trump's trade war with China is costing America's soybean farmers untold millions of dollars and future markets, there's another, more catastrophic consequence of his blundering idiocy:

As unsold U.S. soybeans are stored in silos across the farm belt, Brazilian farmers and corporations scramble to satisfy the voracious Chinese market. The push to break new ground amid President Donald Trump’s trade war with China is putting increasing pressure on the Amazon rainforest and is likely linked to the region’s devastating fires, according to experts. [snip]

Brazil is America’s biggest soybean competitor and has stepped up its production now that China has slashed its purchases of U.S. crops in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Soy shipments from Brazil jumped 27% from 2017 to 2018. Chinese imports from Brazil in the 12 months through April amounted to 71 million tons — nearly as much as China imported from the entire world in 2014, according to Bloomberg.

Amid increasing demands for farm products from China, Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has pledged to open up the 2 million-square-mile Amazon forest — including inside protected indigenous areas — to more farming and mining...  [snip]

“Citizens around the world should be concerned by the global environmental and individual health impact of the devastating fires in Brazil, potentially started to clear land for crops and cattle,” said a statement to HuffPost from the American Soybean Association. “Meanwhile, U.S. crops remain unsold.”

Trump and the right- wing nationalist mini- Trumps around the world (like Bolsonaro) are civilization's arsonists.  Ignorance, cupidity and power for the sake of power are the coins of their realms, damn the consequences to their people or to humanity in general.  Blundering into an unnecessary trade war, triggering deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, leading to accelerating global climate change -- it's a perfect symbol of the folly of the Age of Trump and his imitators.