For thirty-four years, Matt Bell has drawn his livelihood from the red clay of North Carolina, but the convergence of global oil disruption, retaliatory trade tariffs, and stagnant crop prices has placed that livelihood in jeopardy. A loyal Republican who voted for the administration he now questions, Bell embodies a quiet fracture forming across rural America — where the gap between promised protection and lived reality has grown too wide to ignore. His story is not merely one man's hardship, but a signal of what happens when the machinery of geopolitics grinds down to a single farmer's fuel
Trump-backing farmer says agriculture policy failed: 'We've been sold a bill of goods'
Some farmers have been forced out of business; others are considering leaving farming, threatening rural livelihoods and agricultural operations.