Washington, Oct 27 — A fourth-generation North Dakota farmer, standing outside the White House days before the midterm elections, has said that President Donald Trump has made the country safer at home but perhaps not abroad, while urging him to be “gentler” and to pursue “freer trade”.
“On the world stage, maybe not because fighting with Iran probably brings…some threats. On the local stage, absolutely. Absolutely, yes,” Reginald Herman told IANS in an interview when asked whether Trump had made America safe and secure.
Herman, from Brinsmade, a small town about 100 miles west of Grand Forks, farms Hermansdale Farm, which his family has worked since 1901, according to a family history published by the Devils Lake Journal.
His message for Trump was brief. “Listen to Franklin Graham and… be gentler, but be hard and firm and tough,” he said.
Herman said immigration, an issue often linked to border states, mattered in his state too. “The immigration thing to us in North Dakota, believe it or not, is very important,” he said.
But he drew a line between secure borders and hostility to immigrants. “I believe in secure borders, but I, I’ve adopted an Asian girl… I love immigrants, but I, I just think we need to be, safer about it and have a right path like my grandpa took and many, many immigrant friends of mine have taken,” he said.
He said his family had helped bring “four people from other countries to America through green cards” or through a programme for Ukrainians. “We brought a couple here and supported them to come to America to get away from the war. So we support immigration. We just want it done right.”
On agriculture, he said farmers were used to regulation but wanted more open markets. “Agriculture is a very regulated industry, so we’re used to a lot of government involvement. But at the same time, we would like to see freer trade,” he said.
He said he wanted his children and grandchildren, the fifth and sixth generations, to have “the freedom to, grow, to be taxed fairly, but yet not to be so restricted”.
Herman was mixed on Trump’s first two years back in office. “There’s things I, I like and there’s things I don’t like, but that has been every president since I was born, way back to Kennedy,” he said.
“I wish he was a gentler guy, but I’m starting to think in Washington, if you’re gentle, you just get walked on,” he said, adding that “in the last two years, a lot has got done”.
He singled out Trump’s White House ballroom project. “The ballroom makes me proud. There’s no reason on earth we don’t have a world class secure environment in the White House,” he said.
He blamed both parties for the gridlock. “I think the fighting is just, it’s all political on both sides of the aisle. It’s not just one or the other. They’re both kind of immature,” he said.
Herman rejected criticism that the US is imperialistic. “If we’re imperialistic, why are all the immigrants wanting to come here? I’ve been around the world and people just love to talk to an American,” he said.
With few contests of note at home, he said North Dakotans were watching the national picture, including races in Michigan. He said even the state’s Democrats were “very conservative people” who worried about “really far left things that we think would maybe erode…some of our freedoms”.