Everything has a price. The trade war declared by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, which harms all its partners and which takes measures to try to alleviate the crisis of the cost of living, which is at the origin of this policy, harms American farmers. Farm owners in the Middle West, many of whom supported Trump in last year’s presidential elections, are finding their soy crops increasingly losing value after China pulled out of the local market due to economic tensions, while their livestock are depreciating due to competition from Argentine meat.
To mitigate the damage to farmers and ranchers, United States President Donald Trump plans to approve this month $12 billion in aid, the equivalent of €10.3 billion, for struggling farm owners, as previously reported. The Washington Post. The mechanism would be a sort of rescue program for agricultural products and livestock most affected by the aggressive agricultural policy of the tenant of Despacho Oval.
The Republican president met this month with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to outline details of the aid plan. Trump is guilty of the situation faced by farmers and ranchers under the previous Joe Biden administration.
Rollins acknowledged that the agricultural sector is facing an unprecedented crisis, due to rising costs, including fertilizers, seeds and machinery such as tractors and harvesters. The head of Agriculture explained that farmers will receive aid before the end of next February.
The majority of the aid, some 11 billion, will be allocated to the new aid program of the Ministry of Agriculture. Resources will be dedicated to producers of corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans, rice, livestock, wheat and potatoes. The rest, the remaining 1,000 million, will be intended for aid for basic products which do not cover the main program, according to the Post.
Casa Blanca Press Secretary Anna Kelly spoke about the move: “Today’s announcement reflects the President’s commitment to helping our farmers, who will have the support needed to overcome the gap between (former President Joe) Biden’s failures and the effectiveness of the President’s successful policies.
This measure, in any case, must count on the approval of Congress, although much resistance from legislators is not expected due to the arrests of farmers and those of the parties.
The rural crisis in the Midwestern United States began in the spring, when Trump approved advances that threatened Chinese buyers in the domestic soybean market. Beijing, which until then had been the main customer, stopped buying grain from farmers in the United States, who came to part with the price of their crops. Hundreds of large farms have experienced financial problems because of this situation.
On the other hand, after last November’s elections to the New York City Council, won by the socialist Zohran Mamdani, and to the presidency of the states of Virginia and New Jersey, in which the Democrats also won, all with a speech on equity, Casa Blanca tried to recover the initiative in the matter. Approved discounts on beef from Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries, as well as other trade discounts on other food products such as coffee, fruits and vegetables.
Farmers, who caused problems due to the sudden drop in livestock numbers due to drought and the enormous losses imposed by the lack of competence between “the big four”, as we know Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef, the giants of the meat sector in the United States, have worsened their situation due to the arrival of Argentine meat.
Trump’s support for Argentine President Javier Milei, with a million dollar financial bailout and financial support to the flesh of this country, relieving farmers, one of the traditional electoral supports of the Republicans.
The new aid program therefore implies an implicit recognition of the serious consequences of Trump’s aggressive trade policy for the American primary sector.
“President Trump is supporting our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farmers and strengthening the farm security network for the first time in a decade,” Kelly said.
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