The Dutch farmers’ protest has been gathering significant support from right wing groups abroad, with former US president Donald Trump saying at a rally in Florida this weekend that they are fighting against the ‘climate tyranny’ of the government.

In his speech to a group of conservative students in Tampa, Trump said that Dutch farmers are no longer allowed to work their land, may no longer use artificial fertilizer and that half will have to close down their businesses.

‘They want to get rid of the cattle because of what it does to the globe… You’ll be next,’ Trump said.

The Dutch government is still working on its plans to tackle nitrogen-based pollution, which ministers have said will lead to some farm closures. But even in the worse-case scenario, there is no suggestion that half farmers will have to close down or that artificial fertiliser will be banned.

Trump’s comments came as some 3,000 people took part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam, in which support for farmers was combined with anti-refugee sentiment, satanic cult conspiracies and calls for ‘resistance against tyranny’.

Trump’s intervention puts the Dutch farm protests firmly into the international, populist right wing association of ‘freedom movements’ with anti-democratic tinges which has been emerging from the US to Russia, the Volkskrant said in an analysis.

The protests, which have caused major disruption on the roads and at supermarket distribution centres, have also been picked up on by right wing bloggers and politicians, with French far right leader Marine Le Pen issuing a tweet in their support at the weekend.

Fox News also regularly invites former Forum voor Democratie member Eva Vlaardingerbroek to comment on the protests in the Netherlands. She told the Tucker Carlson show earlier this month that the government ‘is not doing this because of the nitrogen crisis’.

They want the land, she said, to ‘house new immigrants’ because the ‘farmers are obviously standing in the way of the great reset plans they have for all of us.’

Freedom

‘The farmers protest has become part of the big “battle for freedom” which includes anti-immigrant and anti-abortion sentiment, as well as calls to combat ‘global elites’,’ the Volkskrant said.

‘The fact that this right wing movement is extremely international and supported by big earners such as Trump and [Tucker] Carlson is largely ignored.’