President Donald Trump will unveil a bailout plan this week for farmers whose markets have been destroyed by his signature economic policy.
“I’m going to do some farm stuff this week,” the president told reporters at the White House.
That’s Trump speak for finalizing a massive new aid program for farmers who have lost billions of dollars thanks to the president’s tariffs, which sparked a trade war with China earlier this year.
According to The New York Times, China is typically the world’s biggest buyer of American farm products, but this year it began looking elsewhere after Trump imposed tariffs of more than 100 percent on Chinese imports.
The duties are a type of import tax paid by American companies, with the additional costs typically passed on to consumers. The tariffs temporarily priced Chinese products out of the American market.
They have since been reduced to 30 percent, but China has retaliated, in part by imposing a 10 percent duty of its own on American imports, and in part by turning to Brazil and Argentina for agricultural products.
American farmers are on track to sell $10 billion less in soybeans to China compared to last year, and sorghum exports to China—which last year totaled $1.3 billion—are down 97 percent this year, according to The Times.
At the same time, the tariffs have pushed up costs for American farmers, who are facing higher prices for fertilizer and equipment at the exact moment that they’ve lost their biggest customer.
Over the last few years, interest rates have also risen and prices have fallen for key crops.
The result is that prices for nearly every row crop are lower than the cost of production, The Times reported. Republican lawmakers estimate that farmers could need as much as $50 billion in economic support to weather Trump’s trade war.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
During his first term, Trump delivered a $20 billion bailout to farmers—who have long been a reliable voting bloc—after, again, imposing sweeping tariffs on China.
At the time, China retaliated with its own levies on U.S. whiskey, cranberries, pork, and soybeans, forcing the administration to dip into Commodity Credit Corporation funds to help struggling farmers.
This time, that money is gone, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has vowed to provide “substantial” support to farmers, who say they would welcome the aid but would rather be able to export to their customers.
Bessent owns thousands of acres of soybean and corn farmland in North Dakota that generates as much as $1 million per year in rental income, The New York Times reported in August.
On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal editorial board blasted Trump’s tariff policy as “self-destructive folly,” and argued that the “farm fiasco” underscored that business success now depends on how effectively industries and companies can lobby for tariff relief.
“The Beltway bandits on K Street have never had it so good,” the editorial board wrote. “Mr. Trump’s tariffs are great for the political class, not so much for everyone else.”
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