Donald Trump announced on Monday $12bn in economic assistance to farmers, which he said would be drawn from tariff revenue.
“This relief will provide much-needed certainty to farmers as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops, and it’ll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion of American agriculture.
He made the announcement while decrying the protectionist agricultural policies of other countries.
“The farmers don’t want aid. They want a level playing field,” he said. “We’re going to make the farmers so strong … that it will be a golden age for farmers.”
The program will send $11bn in one-time payments to row-crop farmers in bridge payments, while remaining funds will go to other crops in a plan to be worked out later, said agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins. The money will move by 28 February, she said. Farmers will know within a few weeks how much they can apply for, she added.
The bailout comes as fallout from trade disputes with China and other countries over agricultural imports and a mercurial tariff process that the US supreme court is reviewing to determine if they exceed the president’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
China only recently resumed purchases of American soybeans after shifting to other producers such as Argentina, after President Xi Jinping struck a deal with the United States in October that largely reset rates in return for Beijing cracking down on illicit fentanyl shipments and lifting restrictions on rare-earth exports.
Trump, however, lauded the tariff regime as vital to the economy, while attributing farmers’ woes to being “crushed by the worst inflation in modern history and crippling restrictions on energy, water and countless other necessities for farmers”.
Inflation peaked at a 48-year high during Biden’s term, but had been falling for a year when Trump took office.
The bailout is an echo of a $12bn aid package Trump offered farmers in 2018 during a trade dispute with China.
During the roundtable, Trump also took potshots at the complexity of modern farm equipment, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and “fake news” reporters, again insulting more than one female journalist, though with less vulgar language than in recent appearances.
