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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDem stumps Trump adviser on price hikes: 'We cannot build bananas in America'
By David Edwards
Published June 5, 2025 1:47 PM ET
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) called out Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, one of President Donald Trump's top advisers on tariffs, after he claimed bananas would be less expensive if they were grown in the U.S.
"Mr. Trump promised to bring down the cost of goods, day one," Dean said during a Thursday House Appropriations Committee hearing. "And what he has done through his trade deficit fixation and his tariff chaos has nakedly increased the cost of goods."
"The estimates are that for consumers in my area, suburban Philadelphia, $2,000 at least a year increases on goods, she continued. "I'll give you an example of one: bananas. What's the tariff on bananas?"
https://www.rawstory.com/howard-lutnick-tariffs-bananas/
Congresswoman Dean you should have first asked the fascist traitor supporter what the yellow thingy was in your hand.......to see if he could guess it correctly............
sinkingfeeling
(57,190 posts)unblock
(55,903 posts)Puerto Rico as well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_the_United_States
Of course, we also import a lot more, but still, they all seem to think there is no banana industry in America at all.
Basso8vb
(1,230 posts)Retrograde
(11,375 posts)but with the coming warming of the planet who knows what we'll be able to grow in the upper Midwest :saracasm:
From my limited research on the subject, bananas not only require heat, but a constant amount of sunlight throughout the year to produce edible fruit - which is why they're grown in sub-tropical regions with little variation in daylength throughout the year.
Fun fact: there is a species - M. basjoo - that flowers and fruits in San Francisco, but the fruits are small and inedible.
unblock
(55,903 posts)Still, somewhere there's an American farmer saying hey, what am I, chopped liver?
CanonRay
(15,942 posts)right outside Fargo?
Basso8vb
(1,230 posts)Every. Single. Magat.