US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a $12 billion farm aid package to support American farmers who have struggled to sell their crops amid rising costs arising out Washington’s trade war with Beijing.
Trump unveiled the plan with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and several lawmakers and farmers in attendance at a White House roundtable.
Calling the package “vital action to protect and defend American farmers”, Trump said that the aid package would be bankrolled by income from increased US tariffs on foreign products.
“We love our farmers, and as you know the farmers like me,” Trump said during the White House roundtable, adding, “$12 billion is a lot of money.”
Details about the $12 billion bailout package
Reuters reported that $11 billion of the aid package is meant for a newly designed Farmer Bridge Assistance Program for row crop farmers, which include maize, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, and sorghum among others.
The remaining $1 billion, meanwhile, is meant for other crops and specific details are still being worked out-Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that the remaining funds would be disbursed after an assessment of the needs of growers of specialty crops.
The bailout package will be distributed as through one-off payments to crop farmers as part of the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, reported AFP.
Who all are eligible for the one-time payment?
Bloomberg, citing White House officials, reported that farmers with an average adjusted gross income below $900,000 for the 2022-2024 tax years will be eligible for the newly announced one-time payment.
Eligible farmers have until 19 December to submit acreage reporting data, which, in turn, will determine their payment amount.
Rates, meanwhile, are expected to be released by the end of December and the administration expects to distribute the aid to eligible farmers no later than February next year.
Slashing environmental restrictions
Beyond the $12 billion bailout package for the agricultural sector, Trump also announced other measures on Monday.
Saying that farm equipment had gotten too expensive, Trump announced that his administration would help tractor companies by slashing environmental restrictions.
“We’re going to also give the tractor companies, John Deere and all of the companies that make the equipment, we’re going to take off a lot of the environmental restrictions that they have on machinery. It’s ridiculous,” the US President said at the White House roundtable where he announced the farm bailout package.
Trump at the same time directed these companies to lower their prices.
“They’re going to have to reduce their prices because farming equipment has gotten too expensive, and a lot of the reason is because they put these environmental excesses on the equipment, which don’t do a damn thing except make it complicated,” Trump said as per a Bloomberg report.
Wooing American farmers
The US President’s announcement of the aid package on Monday is the Trump administration’s latest effort to stave off economic worries in the agriculture sector, with farm groups and Republican farm-state lawmakers having sought aid earlier amid rising costs and the significant loss of key export markets due to retaliatory tariffs from countries like China.
While the current administration has repeatedly blamed the earlier Joe Biden administration for farmers’ current woes, AFP reported that the present situation has roots in Trump’s first presidency, when retaliatory tariffs led to a $27 billion decline in US agricultural exports from 2018 to 2019.
Regardless, the Trump administration is now proactively trying to win back the approval of farmers, who strongly backed the US President during his 2024 campaign.
Of the 444 counties that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies as farming dependent, Trump won all but 11 in 2024, with an average vote share of 77.4%.