Tayo Olanipekun
The U.S President, Donald Trump, has said the trade war with China will benefit “poor and starving countries in the form of humanitarian assistance.”
In a flurry of tweets on Friday morning, he said the over $100bn his country would make from the tariff slammed on goods coming from China would enable the U.S buy more agricultural products from its “Great Farmers” than he estimated the world’s second largest economy ever does.
Trump said the products would then be shipped to the countries he didn’t name in the tweets.
“With the over 100 Billion Dollars in Tariffs that we take in, we will buy agricultural products from our Great Farmers, in larger amounts than China ever did, and ship it to poor & starving countries in the form of humanitarian assistance,” said the U.s. President.
He added that the U.S farmers would do “better” and “faster” under the new tariff, and that “starving nations can now be helped.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 2.7 million women and children in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states in the northeastern part of Nigeria ravaged by insurgency need nutrition support including 310, 000 children in need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and 250, 000 who suffer from moderate acute malnutrition.
The body also screened more than one million children for malnutrition in 2018 alone, including nearly 10, 000 severely acute malnourished and 40 000 moderately acute malnourished children.
The World Food Program (WFP) recently listed the U.S among the countries and organisations it recognised for having supported or pledged contributions to its Country Strategic Plan (CSP).
The UN body noted that it had addressed the immediate food needs of an average of 1.2 million vulnerable people in the strife stricken North East Nigeria in 2018 alone.
Trump said his country has commenced the process of placing additional tariffs at 25 per cent on the remaining $325 bn trade from China, saying the U.S. only sells China approximately 100 Billion Dollars of goods and products, thereby constituting “a very big imbalance.”
