In Iowa, Successful Farming reported that US President Donald Trump is considering providing $10 billion or more in aid to U.S. farmers as the agriculture sector warns of economic fallout from his far-reaching tariffs.
A senior administration official said the discussions have centered on $10 billion to $14 billion in aid, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The aid likely would go toward helping soybean producers, as well as other parts of the farm economy. The official stressed that the deliberations were ongoing and that nothing had been definitively settled.
“When Trump placed tariffs on China during his first term, Chinese imports of U.S. soybeans plummeted, devastating farmers’ balance sheets,” Schwartz, Thomas, and Andrews reported. “The U.S. Agriculture Department has estimated that soybean growers accounted for more than 70% of the financial losses incurred by farmers during Trump’s first trade war.”
“The government sent about $23 billion to farmers to compensate,” Schwartz, Thomas, and Andrews added. “While soybean exports recovered in the following years, China has been squeezing American farmers out and has spent heavily to improve the agriculture supply chain in South American countries such as Brazil to fill the gap.”
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Category: Food & Agriculture
