President Donald Trump’s $12 billion bailout of American farmers will provide at least temporary relief from their struggles. But critics say the underlying problems, including his tariffs, still have not been solved.
Trump’s trade wars have “bludgeoned the already struggling U.S. agricultural sector,” said Axios. Farmers were staggering under the weight of “falling commodity prices and rising production costs,” but the president’s tariffs did not help. China stopped buying American-grown soybeans as retaliation, “crushing the largest export market for American farmers.” Now more than half of U.S. farms are “losing money.” The newly announced bailout “will provide much-needed certainty” to the sector, Trump said. Others are not so sure. A “one-time payment is not a long-term fix,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
Many farmers see the bailout as a “welcome stopgap,” said Fortune. But they do not believe it will “solve the agricultural industry’s problems.” The payments from the Trump administration are “not the ultimate solution we’re looking for,” said Charlie Radman, who grows corn and soybeans in Minnesota. Many of Radman’s colleagues say they want “trade, not aid.” American farmers “need more demand for our product,” said Iowa corn farmer Dan Keitzer to Fortune.
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Aid to farmers is Trump’s solution to a “self-created trade mess,” said The Washington Post editorial board. It is not just that the tariffs have cut off export markets for American-grown foodstuffs. They have also “driven up input costs for farmers,” who now must pay $100-a-ton more for fertilizer than they did a year ago. The president’s aid package will only partly offset the $44 billion that U.S. farmers are expected to suffer this year. Americans get “higher food prices and fewer options” while the farmers who feed them are doing worse than if Trump had “never imposed tariffs.”
The bailout is proof tariffs do not work, “but don’t expect the White House to think too hard about it,” said Eric Boehm at Reason. Farmers need aid because Trump’s trade wars are “creating higher prices for farmers” while also “making American agricultural products less competitive” in worldwide markets. Trump should have “learned this lesson already.” His first-term tariffs ended up forcing a $28 billion bailout of American farmers. History is repeating itself “with the same predictable results.”
What next?
American farmers “aren’t out of the woods yet,” said Foreign Policy. After the bailout was announced, Trump threatened new tariffs on Canadian fertilizer. That would “risk further straining” the finances of American farmers who use the product. And the president shows no signs of abandoning his overall tariff-driven approach to trade. The import fees have “greatly enhanced” U.S. national security, the president said on Truth Social. That will not come as good news to farmers who support Trump, but also who want to sell their products rather than live with uncertainty. They want “export market access, not handouts,” said Cornell University economist Chris Barrett.
