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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion farm aid package on Monday – a boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their crops while getting hit by rising costs after the president raised tariffs on China as part of a broader trade war.
He unveiled the plan Monday afternoon at a White House roundtable with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers from farm states, and farmers who thanked him for the help.
“With this bridge payment, we’ll be able to farm another year,” Iowa farmer Cordt Holub told Trump during the event.
Rollins put the immediate value of the program at $11 billion – money that the White House said will offer one-time payments to row-crop farmers. Another $1 billion will be put aside for specialty crops as the administration works to better understand the circumstances for those farmers, Rollins said. The aid will move by the end of February, she said.
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“We looked at how they were hurt, to what extent they were hurt,” Trump said, explaining how the administration came up with the size of the package. Trump said the money for the program will come from tariff revenue.
Farmers have backed Trump politically, but his aggressive trade policies and frequently changing tariff rates have come under increasing scrutiny because of the impact on the agricultural sector and because of broader consumer worries.
The aid is the administration’s latest effort to defend Trump’s economic stewardship and answer voter angst about rising costs. Trump has been dismissive of the affordability issue at times, but on Tuesday, he is set to travel to Pennsylvania to talk about how his administration is trying to address a concern that is important for voters.
China purchases have been slow
Soybeans and sorghum were hit the hardest by Trump’s trade dispute with China because more than half those crops are exported each year with most of the harvest going to China.
In October, after Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, the White House said Beijing had promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25 million metric tons a year in each of the next three years. China is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans, but in recent years it has increasingly been shifting its purchases over to Brazil and other South American nations.
China has purchased more than 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement at the end of October. That’s only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February, which is two months later than the White House originally promised.
“These prices haven’t come in, because the Chinese actually used our soybean farmers as pawns in the trade negotiations,” Bessent said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” explaining why farm aid was needed.
The size of the $12 billion aid package is roughly the value of total U.S. soybean exports to China in 2024 and half the total exports of U.S. farm goods to China in 2024.
Farmers say their costs have surged
Farmers appreciate the aid package, but they say it’s likely only a down payment on what’s needed and government aid doesn’t solve the fundamental problems of soaring costs and uncertain markets. During Trump’s first term, he gave farmers more than $22 billion in aid payments in 2019 at the start of his trade war with China and nearly $46 billion in 2020, although that year also included aid related to the COVID pandemic.
Farmers say want to make a profit off selling their crops — not rely on government aid to survive.
“That’s a start, but I think we need to be looking for some avenues to find other funding opportunities and we need to get our markets going. That’s where we want to be able to make a living from,” said Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky farmer who serves as president of the American Soybean Association.
Most at risk are younger farmers and those who rent — instead of own — their land because they don’t have much ability to borrow against the equity in their farms. If farmers can’t make ends meet this year, there could be additional consolidation in the industry with giant industrial farms getting bigger and the number of smaller family farmers continuing to shrink.
Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt is in a difficult position because he only owns 160 of the 2,000 acres he farms. So he says he’s selling some of his equipment that’s not essential and looking into whether he can pick up some overnight trucking jobs to help raise some cash.
“It is to the point where I don’t want to saddle my kid with the kind of stress that my wife and I are under right now,” Ewoldt said.
But fourth-generation Minnesota farmer Darin Johnson said he’s more optimistic that most farmers will be able to endure this latest trade war.
“A lot of farms are pretty well-established and they have the equity to be able to still keep borrowing money to get through tougher times like this,” Johnson said.
Trump has also been under pressure to address soaring beef prices. Trump has asked the Department of Justice to investigate foreign-owned meat packers he accused of driving up the price of beef, although he has not provided evidence to back his claims.
On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to look at “anti-competitive behavior” in food supply chains – including seed, fertilizer and equipment – and consider taking enforcement actions or developing new regulations.
Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota contributed to this report.
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