Many Republicans were highly critical of former President Barack Obama's decision to bail out U.S. automakers after taking office at the peak of the Great Recession. Mitt Romney, now a U.S. senator, even wrote an op-ed urging Obama to let Detroit go bankrupt. President Trump has his own bailout, sending extra federal subsidies to farmers hurt by his trade war with China. The $28 billion and counting isn't fully offsetting the loss of Chinese purchases and markets for U.S. soybeans, pork, and other agricultural products, but it is still relatively generous, as Bloomberg Businessweek notes:
China hawks in Trump's administration want Beijing to quit subsidizing strategic industries, yet that hasn't deterred the White House from doling out billions in aid to American farmers, who have become more dependent on government money than they've been in years. At $28 billion so far, the farm rescue is more than twice as expensive as the 2009 bailout of Detroit's Big Three automakers, which cost taxpayers $12 billion. And farmers expect the money to keep flowing. [Bloomberg Businessweek]
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