WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has proposed a $12 billion farm aid package. The package aims to help farmers struggling to sell their crops. Since the president increased tariffs on China, farmers have also had to deal with rising inflation and additional market disruptions.
According to a White House official, Trump will reveal the plan this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins are expected to attend the unveiling. Both lawmakers are farmers who grow a wide array of crops, including corn, cotton, and soybeans.
The Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies and constantly changing tariff rates have faced severe criticism from farmers who have backed Trump politically. They have voiced their worries and their impact on the agricultural sector.
“The problem is still that we have high costs of production,” Mark Legan, a livestock, corn, and soybean farmer from Putnam County, Indiana, expressed to BBC
The package is part of a set of efforts by the Trump administration to combat affordability concerns.
The crops affected most by the trade war with China have been soybeans and sorghum. China imports more than half of the U.S. harvest annually.
The White House will use $11 billion to offer one-time payments to farmers for row crops. This money is from the Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program.
“These prices haven’t come in, because the Chinese actually used our soybean farmers as pawns in the trade negotiations,” Bessent said on CBS's Face the Nation, addressing the imperativeness of the program.
The remaining funds will be distributed to farmers not covered by the program. The plan aims to provide a cushion as they market their current harvest and plan for the following one.
In October, Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea to discuss several matters. Beijing agreed to purchase 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the year. China also promised the import of 75 million metric tons over the span of three years.
China has purchased over 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since the agreement. Secretary Bessent assures the Chinese government is on track to meet its goal by February 2026.
