With a giant, golden tractor parked in the White House driveway, President Trump on Friday cast himself as a champion of the American farmer, promising to bolster small-business loan guarantees for an industry hit hard by his tariffs and rising prices from the war in Iran.
Mr. Trump announced the measure during an event at the White House where, speaking before hundreds of farmers from across the country, he declared that the expansion would drive down grocery costs.
Mr. Trump also said he was urging major tractor companies, such as John Deere and Caterpillar, to “produce a bigger, better tractor at substantially less money.” And he vowed that his administration would be “cutting out massive amounts of nonsense that are mandated to be put on your tractors and all of your trucks that cost you a fortune.”
“From Minnesota to Mississippi, we’re lifting up our hard-working farmers and ranchers and growers, and we’re putting more money in American pockets,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to prove that the golden age of American agriculture is right here and right now.”
The remarks come as American farmers find themselves once again in the cross hairs of Mr. Trump’s most consequential policies. Farmers have been hit particularly hard by the president’s tariffs policies. And as a result of Mr. Trump’s war against Iran, which disrupted the global oil supply and sent gas prices surging, diesel fuel, which powers tractors, has risen by nearly $1 per gallon.
Mr. Trump assured the crowd: “And by the way, we’re doing really well in Iran, just so you understand. How good is our military?”
Mr. Trump said a “dramatic update” to renewable fuel standards was in the works. He also said he would seek congressional action to allow E15, a cheaper gasoline blend that consists of 15 percent ethanol and is restricted during the summer, to be available year-round. The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued emergency waivers to suspend some anti-smog restrictions on summertime gasoline blends, in an attempt to ease the recent spike in fuel prices stemming from the war with Iran.
The event on Friday appeared to be an attempt by Mr. Trump to quell the concerns of farmers, a critical voting bloc for the president. He rattled off a litany of actions his administration has taken to provide them relief in the past. Among them, he claimed to have saved two million American farms from “extinction” by ending the “unfair” estate tax and sought to slash restrictions that were advocated by environmentalists, whom he called “terrorists.”
But even before the war raised fertilizer and diesel costs, a majority of American farmers said they were “much worse off” or “somewhat worse off” than one year ago, according to a January survey by Farm Journal, the agricultural publisher.
Their biggest concern was the high cost of the essentials needed to plant their crops, and the war in Iran has added to those pressures.
In December, Mr. Trump rolled out a $12 billion bailout to shore up the finances of struggling farmers. That move was sure to also address concerns among Republicans in rural states who had rallied the White House to take action before the midterm elections in November.
“You think Biden would have done that?” he asked the crowd on Friday, drawing chuckles.
Mr. Trump took aggressive steps last year to address building concern among farmers by easing trade tensions with China. To retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, China, the biggest buyer of American crops like soybeans, halted purchases of U.S. farm products. The boycott caused American farmers to increasingly warn of the worst crisis since the 1980s for their sector. Mr. Trump has also imposed high tariffs on foreign goods that farmers need, such as metal used for farm buildings and tractors.
Some farmers also expressed alarm when the Trump administration last year announced a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, a nation China turned to for soybeans after refusing to buy from American growers. And ranchers grew upset with his plan to import Argentine beef.
Mr. Trump said on Friday that his trade deals had expanded markets for American beef and dairy products and that more American soybeans were being shipped to China.
Mr. Trump’s immigration restrictions have also cut down the number of farm laborers, prompting the president himself to call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ease enforcement at agricultural sites. And in a shift from his anti-immigration agenda, Mr. Trump also recently made it cheaper for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas. Agricultural leaders have celebrated those changes to the H-2A program, noting the difficulty in hiring Americans for those jobs.
But some of Mr. Trump’s supporters advocating more hard-line immigration policies have argued that the move will only encourage more foreign labor while suppressing the wages of American-born workers.
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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