While in Washington, D.C., the National Association of Farm Broadcasters group had the chance to visit with Congressman Dusty Johnson. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network’s Farm Director KC Sheperd features comments from the South Dakota Republican talking about the 2023 Farm Bill, smart policy, and more.
Johnson first talks about the threat that China poses to the United States.
“The Chinese Communist party has a pattern of decades of aggression toward our country, and there are certainly some issues with the Chinese Communist party that garner more headlines,” Johnson said. ‘We talk about spy balloons and Tik Tok, but the reality is, this is a multi-dimensional threat, and Tik Tok doesn’t even make the top 50 list of the greatest concerns that we should have.”
The reality is, Johnson said, is that China has been very deliberate in gaining what experts call “coercive power,” particularly over food and critical minerals across the globe.
The world is a lot safer when America plays a leading role, Johnson said, and a lot less safe when people look to the Chinese Communist Party for leadership.
When it comes to the Biden Administration’s overwhelming push for the use of electric vehicles when China has most of the parts for those, Johnson said American passivity in developing critical mineral capacity here at home has been a strategic blunder.
“We use critical minerals for a lot of things, but certainly, electric vehicles are very high on the list,” Johnson said. “When we say that we have to have this push for electric vehicles, but then we will make it impossible to do mining activity in this country, then I think we are playing in the hands, whether purposefully or by accident, we are playing into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and giving them more coercive power over our country. It is a big mistake.”
Johnson also gave an update on the cattle contract library and the cattle market reform.
“I think the library is a good tool,” Johnson said. “I don’t think anybody would have insinuated that it was going to be a ‘silver bullet,’” Johnson said. “I do think it provides us with some additional data for us to understand what is happening in the marketplace, and as we get a little bit more time to digest those findings, I think it is going to inform some legislation on what we need to do to make sure we have a more robust market.”
The next several steps, Johnson said, will be to continue focusing on adding capacity outside of the big four packers.
Johnson expressed his concern about Ford making the decision to take AM radio out of new vehicles.
“I just cannot imagine that it costs very much to implement that AM frequency into the dashboard,” Johnson said.
