You're right that imports would make up the difference, but that's where national security comes in. If you rely on importing your food and your trading partners become adversaries or shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed.
We are net exporters of all the major staples. At the very least, we can ratchet down subsidies until we are no longer a net exporter of agricultural products; that level of production is sufficient to handle all our essentials.
> If you rely on importing your food and shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed.
The biggest exporters of agricultural products to the United States are Mexico and Canada, which also have plenty of excess capacity. Even in the unlikely scenario that some geopolitical rival manages to shut down trade across the Pacific and the Atlantic, we wouldn't be in a place where we have to worry about our food. If somehow our rival also had the capacity to shut down transit of goods across our land borders, they also have the capacity to shut down domestic transit of goods. I.e., even having self sufficiency based on farms in Iowa wouldn't help feed anyone on the coasts.
lol not if a world war happens buddy. regardless of whether we export staples or not (and we eat more than staples), staples taste horrible without spices, which we import at net 60%, and we need more of everything when we're defending liberal values from being wiped off the earth.
Even if we took that argument as compelling, it doesn't explain why we should subsidize wheat and corn instead of said exotic spices.
boo hoo. I never set the first goal posts, nor the second that you imply. They're all only components of maintaining quality of life for our constituents and fellow citizens in a probability distribution of predictable things, including so-called 'black swan' events.
The risk of ending wheat/corn subsidies is so much higher than having them in the first place...
Overfarming, exports and food waste are just side effects of this mechanism.