Donald Trump is warning about a “war” on farmers if Hillary Clinton gets elected president. He made the comment on Saturday while campaigning in Iowa (via Associated Press):

“Hillary Clinton wants to shut down family farms just like she wants to shut down the mines and the steelworkers,” he said in front of a wall of straw bales at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. “She will do this not only through radical regulation, but also by raising taxes on family farms – and all businesses – to rates as high as nearly 50 percent.”

Trump has been getting a pretty mixed reaction from farmers across the country during the course of the campaign. The Hill reported in January how Trump bowed at the alter of “Big Corn,” by saying he supported a higher ethanol mandate.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Trump, a real estate mogul and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to follow the ethanol volumes Congress set in 2007.

“The EPA should ensure that biofuel … blend levels match the statutory level set by Congress under the [renewable fuel standard],” Trump said.

The mandate is popular in Iowa, which hosts the nation’s first caucuses.

Trump has also been criticized by farmers for his comments on illegal immigration. Several farmers claimed to Politico their lives would be much harder if all illegal immigrants were kicked out of the country.

“There are growers out there screaming for labor,” said [ Carlos ] Castañeda, a farm labor contractor in San Luis Obispo County in central California. “The people who are coming in are doing the work that not a single American would like to do.”..

The candidate’s inflammatory talk, especially his vow to deport 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, poses a serious threat to U.S. farmers struggling to get their crops to market, said Frank Muller, who grows tomatoes, peppers, almonds and walnuts on his California farm.

“My farm would shut down today if you removed my … workforce,’ Muller said. “You hear all these disparaging remarks about immigrants, but these guys are the hardest-working, most dedicated people … I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The issue is Trump and Hillary Clinton’s insistence on the government getting involved in everything, whether it’s ethanol or immigration mandates. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about immigration or business mandates (even if the commerce clause has been twisted into knots), and it’s time to stop expecting government to be the solution to “ALL THE THINGS.” Government involvement ends up causing more problems, not less, and limits the opportunity for people to succeed. Andrew Napolitano was absolutely correct last September when he decreed the importance of “natural rights” in Reason (emphasis mine).

The natural rights of all persons consist of areas of human behavior for which we do not need and will not accept the need for a government permission slip. We all expect that the government will leave us alone when we think, speak, publish, worship, defend ourselves, enter our homes, choose our mates, or travel. The list of natural rights is endless.

We expect this not because we are Americans, but because we are persons and these rights are integral to our nature. We expect this in America because the Constitution was written to restrain the government from interfering with natural rights.

The question is, “how do we get back to this?” Well, it’s going to take time. I’d love to wake up tomorrow in a world where the government was miniscule, and only concerned with “life, liberty, and property,” but that’s not going to happen. What conservatives and libertarians are going to have to do is focus on getting pro-freedom issues passed on the local and state level, whilst also looking at the federal level. There are going to have to be times where negotiation happens (half a loaf) to make sure the entire loaf is grabbed later. But it means holding everyone accountable, and until we’re willing to do that the government is just gonna keep growing and growing. Trump’s insistence on a war on farmers, while promoting big government mandates, is the exact opposite of what we should be supporting.