Over the past few weeks, the White House has held a series of interagency meetings with the Departments of Agriculture and Treasury as they attempt to finalize a relief package for US farmers, the sources said. Discussions over the best way to aid the agriculture industry are ongoing, the officials said, but they have zeroed in on two options. The Wall Street Journal first reported the discussions.

“There are a lot of levers we can use to help ease the pain they are feeling,” one of the officials told CNN. One idea, floated publicly by Trump as recently as Wednesday, is to give farmers a percentage of the income the United States is receiving from the administration’s tariffs on goods being imported into the country.

“We’ve made so much money on Tariffs, that we are going to take a small portion of that money, and help our Farmers. I WILL NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN!” Trump wrote on social media this week. The other is tapping into a “slush fund,” as the officials described it, at the Department of Agriculture.

The Trump administration also dipped into the fund, known as Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP), in March to similarly provide assistance to farmers. USDA at the time issued $10 billion in direct payments to eligible agricultural producers of eligible commodities for the 2024 crop year.

The administration has also discussed implementing a combination of the two, depending on where they can most quickly pull the funds from, one White House official said. The current range of aid they are looking to offer ranges from $10 billion to $14 billion.

“The final figure will depend on how much farmers need and the amount of tariff revenue coming in,” the official told CNN.

Trump himself as privately been applying pressure on his team to ensure that American farmers, many of whom the Trump administration credit for helping the president win the November 2024 election, are protected. But the other reason they are making the agriculture industry such a priority, officials say, is because the Trump administration views protecting farmers as a national security issue.

“We need to grow our own food. We can’t rely on imports from other countries, that poses a problem for national security. And right now, the government is subsidizing a lot of that process,” one Trump administration official argued.

US soybean industry in crisis

An issue complicating the Trump administration’s goals revolve around soybeans — America’s largest agricultural export, valued at more than $24 billion in 2024, according to USDA data.

Last year, about half of those exports went to China, but since May, that’s dropped down to zero as a result of an effective embargo China has placed on US soybeans in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on the country. China has implemented 20% tariffs on US soybeans, making the crop from other countries significantly more attractive.

That couldn’t come at worse time for soybean farmers, with the harvest season in full swing and some farms reporting strong yields. And their luck might not change anytime soon, with Beijing ramping up its reliance on South America — inadvertently aided the US Treasury’s financial lifeline provided to Argentina in recent weeks.

Last week, the Trump administration said it would arrange a $20 billion lifeline to Argentina’s central bank, which would exchange US dollars for pesos to help stabilize Argentina’s financial market. Argentina also temporarily scrapped export taxes on grains to help stabilize the peso, but China didn’t waste any time.

Beijing purchased “at least 10 cargoes of Argentine soybeans,” according to a report from Reuters. Brazil has also helped meet China’s demand for soybeans, with both countries announcing a pact in July to deepen agricultural trade ties.

As a result, America’s hobbled soybean industry is calling on the Trump administration to finish its trade negotiations with China.

“US soybean farmers have been clear for months: the administration needs to secure a trade deal with China. China is the world’s largest soybean customer and typically our top export market,” American Soybean Association President Caleb Ragland said last week in a statement.

Pressure on Trump

Many farmers say time is of the essence as they start to bring in this year’s crop.

“We’re always hopeful that those negotiations are moving forward, but yet with harvest here, patience may be running thin,” one Indiana farmer told CNN, describing the industry’s many challenges, which also include the deportation of key workers.

Trump has heard the calls for action.

On Wednesday, Trump blamed China for the pain soybean farmers are facing, arguing Beijing is refusing to buy soybeans for negotiating purposes amid the two countries’ tariff dispute. He added that he plans to make soybeans “a major topic of discussion” when he meets face-to-face with China’s President Xi Jinping in South Korea next month.

Part of the reason Trump has given the issue so much attention, White House officials say, is because Rollins has forced the issue with not only the president, but also one of his closest advisers: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

On Tuesday, a photo of Bessent’s phone captured by the Associated Press went viral, showing a text from a contact named “BR,” presumed to be Rollins. Her messages illustrated panic within the Trump administration over the soybean industry’s woes, which worsened over the Argentina ordeal.

During this “time of uncertainty” for farmers and ranchers, Rollins said that she is in “constant communication” with the White House and partners across the government. Rollins also called Trump’s idea of temporarily giving tariff revenue to farmers “a very elegant solution.”

“To this moment of uncertainty, the ability to offset any payments to the farmers through potential tariff revenue is really where the president wants us to head, and that’s what we’re looking at,” she added.

How very efficient.

>>1445906
'Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history'
The above is a quote by someone who thought befire he spoke. Certainly before he acted.
Considering the letter after the particular US president who said that, was he wrong, Trumpo?

>>1445906
>Farm production expenses are estimated to reach $467.4 billion in 2025, according to the Agriculture Department, up $12 billion from last year.
Wait so he's not even really bailing most of them out with this?

>>1445910
Working great, I estimate 12 million Americans will starve this coming year. Good times ahead. Excellent work Trump, project 2025 is right on schedule.

>>1445910
Blamed China...
Shot his own foot, pistol in hand, limps away blaming China.

Reminder that liberals believe the government should subsidize everything except the food supply. Starvation is one of their favorite things about communism. You can spend 200 million on gay muppets in the middle east, but no money can go to keeping the good supply stable

>>1445948
Liberals believe that fucking over farmers then using the profits to only partially reimburse them is retarded. We wouldn't need to give them 10 billion if we didn't cost them 12 billion through Trump sabotaging their trade deals.

>>1445929
The chinks aren't people Anon, you don't have to worry about their feelings. What they do or do not do doesn't matter, they'll be a conquered property of America before the century is up anyway.

>>1445948
>>1445950
>>1445956
My RETARDar has many blips. Imminent collision of rationality and irrationality warning alert.

>>1445906
>hm yeah let’s just print 10 billion dollars
>inflation spikes
>farmers and everyone else more in debt
>problem not solved

>>1445998
>RETARDar

Raytardar? Ratardar? Webster's dictionary needs to clarify this term immediately

>>1445948
Point out where the article mentions liberals.

The subsidized queens get more welfare? Color me shocked.

>>1446023
I never understood why you people hate farmers getting subsidies
>Wants healthcare subsidies
>Doesn't want food subsidies because fuck American farmers let's buy our food from Guatemala
How about you just go to Mexico for your next medical procedure, that way you won't want medical subsidies either lmao

>>1446024
It's less them getting subsidies and more the cycle of
>Ruin farmers sales
>We now all have to pay for it

Like you know how we could've avoided this? By not fucking up their foreign exports in the first place. We literally have to pay for Trump's own stupidity.

I'm also curious how "I won't pay for someone else's healthcare!" doesn't apply to "I have to pay for someone else's food".

>>1446024
It's the hypocrisy of it all. How many of the now desperate farmers voted to cut the programs the government was using to pay them more than they were worth? How many of them cheer when they hear about "city folks" getting stuff cut? They are the welfare queens they rail against and now they've punched themselves in the nose and expect sympathy. They can have their subsidies, but they should recognize them for what they are. It's a handout for people who couldn't hack it on their own.

>>1446025
>I'm also curious how "I won't pay for someone else's healthcare!"
This was always silly to me because that's what most people do anyway when insured. Like wth do you think Carl Carlsson insured by Greedco that just got a huge operation didn't use money paid into the system by others insured by Greedco?

There's just another middleman profiting from it all, that's it.

>>1446024
>Subsidies for farms are fine because we shouldn't have subsidies for medical care
Most cogent right-wing argument

If you're looking for a comprehensive argument, we need structural reform in healthcare: subsidies are just a bandaid. We need to make it easier to train doctors/nurses and/or make it easier for doctors/nurses to emigrate here. We need to remove/reduce the ability for hospitals to price-gouge those without insurance. We need to loosen drug regulation and patent laws to make it cheaper to buy medicine (if you're concerned about innovation, fund universities more).

Absent those structural reforms (which will never happen since we're still waiting on Donald's Obamacare replacement), subsidies are the only thing standing between millions and financial ruin. I'm ambivalent on farmer subsidies, since they do have some downward pressure on food prices, but would much rather we expand SNAP since most of the farm subsidies just go to corporations, who've already gotten a multi-trillion dollar tax cut.

>>1446027
*A middleman profiting from it AND arbitrarily deciding what procedures you can/can't afford

Our system is truly the worst of both systems: the bureaucratic bloat of a government system combined with the exploitation of an unregulated private system.

>>1446030
Sadly it is too ingrained to be changed in anything but a very long term, along with any reasonable alternative being a subject of a "red scare" of sorts.
>Me not being bankrupted by medical bills is gommunism n shiiieeet

>>1446028
Maybe we should try implementing those reforms BEFORE we let the subsidies run out, so that, you know, there isn't a period of time where Americans are left out to dry.

>>1446032
Honestly at some point medical lobbyists are the only ones who will likely be able to do something about this.
>Healthcare becomes increasingly unaffordable without insurance
>Insurance becomes increasingly unaffordable because healthcare is more expensive
>People lose the ability to pay
>Providers lose business
>Providers charge consumers even more to make up for the losses
>Healthcare becomes even more expensive

This is why healthcare lobbyists generally support Medicare/aid expansion: even though the government comes out less than insurance companies, they can at least know they'll get paid. Given Washington's fetishization of big business, I don't see how we avoid getting screwed either way.

>>1446028
>Subsidies for farms are fine because we shouldn't have subsidies for medical care
That's not my argument at all. You shallow brained retard.

My argument is that if healthcare is important enough to human life to warrant Federal subsidies, then so is food

>>1446028
>Subsidies for farms are fine because we shouldn't have subsidies for medical care
Also for the record, I support subsidies for both healthcare and food you blinded partisan ass spelunker.

>>1446008
The entire Article has TDS. Liberals are the only ones who cry about farmer subsidies.

>>1446050
>Liberals are the only ones who cry about farmer subsidies.
Yeah this is pretty true and I don't get it.
My personal opinion, let's subsidize food. Seems to make as much sense as subsidizing health care, people need it.
But just like how I don't want federally subsidized health care supporting people without legal immigration status, I also don't want federal farming subsidizes being paid to any crops that are for export.

>>1446052
How much food do you think we consume inside the US, exactly? They already trash billions of pounds of it annually because they have nowhere to send it, and that's with USAID and all the subsidies fully in place. You want the government to buy everyone an industrial vat of soy sauce every month or something? Fuck it, I've got a kiddie pool, bring it on.

>>1446054
I bet you do have a kiddie pool, diddler.

>>1446050
Liberals don't cry about farmer subsidies themselves, they cry about the absurdity of them. Farmers cry about government bailouts and socialism while simultaneously expecting and demanding the government to bail them out and subsidize them, and the only need those bailouts because of the people that they keep voting into power.

>>1446052
>My personal opinion, let's subsidize food. Seems to make as much sense as subsidizing health care, people need it.
Agreed. It's the government's responsibility to keep it's people safe and healthy. You're not safe if you're starving and not healthy if you're sick.
>But just like how I don't want federally subsidized health care supporting people without legal immigration status, I also don't want federal farming subsidizes being paid to any crops that are for export.
I am 99% sure that illegal immigrants don't get subsidized health care. Like that's just not a thing.
Unsure about the exported food part. Food aid is a powerful diplomatic tool, though, so if that's happening it might be worth it.

>>1446054
Are you referencing the fact that not all crops are used for consumption and the lower quality or excess go into animal feed or back into the soil? Or are you referencing the small subset of farmers that commit insurance fraud and claim they lost all their crops?

>>1446054
Then export more food or just make less of it. Us throwing out too much food is hardly an argument against some sort of universal basic nutrition deal.

>>1446056
>I am 99% sure that illegal immigrants don't get subsidized health care. Like that's just not a thing.
Whenever you see a retard complaining about this, they're literally just complaining that Hospitals are required by law to treat anyone that comes in to stabilize them, and if they're not paid the goverment chips in some money.
There's a possibility that person who comes in is an illegal immigrant, and even then its still cheaper for the nation to treat them and absorb the cost than it is to clean their corpse out of the gutter later.
Also something something christian nation, but the GOP doesn't care about that part except when they can hurt women and fuck kids

>>1446057
No, I'm referring to the large amounts of subsidized crops that they do not have the logistical throughput to send anywhere before it rots in the field or warehouse. Every single year, mountains of crops and oceans of milk get dumped because there are not enough grocery stores and restaurants to take it within the short period where it is fresh enough to give to consumers.

>>1446062
>Every single year, mountains of crops and oceans of milk get dumped because there are not enough grocery stores and restaurants to take it within the short period where it is fresh enough to give to consumers.
Can I see a source

>>1446065
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-04/2019-wasted-food-report_508_opt_ec_4.23correction.pdf

>residential waste = 26.5 million tons
>supermarkets and wholesalers = 13 million tons
>hotels, restaurants, hospitals, sports events, and other services = 25~ million tons
>manufacturing and processing waste before it even gets near consumers = 40 million tons

>>1445906
We don't need to be feeding the Chinese, we need to be starving them. There are more than enough Chinks on the planet by an order of magnitude, the last thing we need to be doing is making sure they have enough food to keep breeding.

>>1446075
Yeah they're getting the exact same amount of food from other places. So all we've accomplished is detonating a multi-billion dollar industry, and actually TOOK AWAY leverage over China.

>>1445948
>You can spend 200 million on gay muppets in the middle east, but no money can go to keeping the good supply stable

But the white house is getting a ballroom added on, and while there are 2 planes being built for the president, we now have the money to completely rebuild a plane from Qatar, that Trump will be taking for personal use. All of that is fine.

>>1446078
You're replying to a retard who is cheering on Trump paying 20 billion dollars to Argentina so they can sell crops to China instead of the US, and spend the rest on socialist healthcare

>>1446073
>residential waste = 26.5 million tons
>supermarkets and wholesalers = 13 million tons
>hotels, restaurants, hospitals, sports events, and other services = 25~ million tons
>manufacturing and processing waste before it even gets near consumers = 40 million tons
Well that's not farmers at all lmao. Maybe that last category fits into my previous statement of "processing the stuff that isn't fit for human consumption into livestock feed"

>>1446080
>manufacturing
That's farmers. Processing is when you turn a dirty tomato into soup or put it in a bag with a barcode on it.

>>1446075

I'm old (36) and grew up in a flyover state. Ive been driving through and flying over the midwest for 15 years.

I dont think most of the country has any idea how much space, time and energy we spend growing soybeans. An insane amount of our agriculture is corn for NOT HUMANS and soybeans.
the amount of space thats developed in the middle of the country for just soybeans is nuts

and its subsidized as hell... but we send it all to China
and that is the leverage where they have us by the balls.

your tax dollars gave china the power to do this.
they have us by the balls
we arent growing our own food with those farms. we were .heavily subsidizing the only product the rest of the world actually wants from america, other than our vehicles

container ships need to pay for the return trip
america is just gonna get less.... fun.
neat.

>>1446082
You don't end that problem by continuing to do trade with China or continuing to incentivize the planting of soybeans, Anon. You end that problem by detonating that market, allowing everyone involved to go fucking broke, and buying up that land for cents on the dollar to fund a new and different enterprise. Every change in life screws over somebody and that's okay. Its not anyone's fault but those farmers that their primary market is selling crops they shouldn't be growing to subhuman bugmen who are the fundamental enemy of mankind.

>>1446081
While I'm not certain farmers own factories that seems more like the Campbell Soup style businesses of America, it still brings us back to my original statement I've said a few times now: Maybe that last category fits into "processing the stuff that isn't fit for human consumption into livestock feed and soil conditioner"

My main point here, if there's a use for refuse, it's going to be used, because it's free, when you say it's "thrown out" I have a really hard time believing that things that could be turned into feedstock or soil conditioner and later resold are instead just being put into a dump truck and drove down to a county dump site somewhere

>>1446086
>factories
That's processing. In the context of food, farms are manufacturing, canning, sterilization, pasteurization, extracting oil, imulsifying, pumping full of freshly squeezed HFCF, and everything else that happens after it leaves the farm is processing.

>>1446083
>Don't worry guys we'll just put dozens of farmers out of business and let big corporations buy up all their land

>>1446088
>let big corporations buy up all their land
If it can't be farmed for profit, what the hell are "big corporations" going to do with a plot of land in the middle of nowhere? Set up a factory to torture poor people or whatever the hell it is you think "big corporations" do with excess profit?

>>1446088
Honestly, I don't even know what you want here, you don't want them to have a life growing food, but apparently you also don't want them to stop farming because of some talking point argument about big corporations.

What do you want from these people? What would actually make you happy?

>>1446091
You'll have to ask Vance about that, he's got a major stake in a VC firm that's been buying up farmland left and right. Very convenient given what the administration has been doing to people who otherwise wouldn't have sold.

>>1446092
>you don't want them to have a life growing food
???

>>1446096
You realize that the total income of a farming household is $90k and they owe mortgage on not just their home but the land that it's on?
It's not like these people are upper class and in all honesty if farming wasn't subsidized, they probably would lose their land just like described earlier resulting in "big corporations" being able to purchase it at a steep discount

>>1446092
>What would actually make you happy?
I demand a large sexy farmer touch my bhole with his pp

>>1446102
??? as in the fuck are you talking about? Nobody said they don't want them to have a life growing food.

>>1446102
You're talking to a retarded shill. Colleges teach retarded liberals that farmers are the oppressive ruling class. Farmers are always conservative, which is why ever liberal government in history is so hostile towards them and why famine is inevitable with communism and socialism

>>1446153
Where do you people get this shit from?

>>1446154
/pol/ and twitter

>>1446153
>which is why ever liberal government in history is so hostile towards them
lmao no government in US history has been more hostile to farmers than the Trump admins. There's a reason he had to bail them out in the first one too.

>>1446153
>Colleges teach retarded liberals that farmers are the oppressive ruling class.
Man. The shit you guys come up with...

>>1446095
Are you talking about this?
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/18/1200196497/locals-push-back-against-plans-to-build-a-tech-utopia-in-solano-county-calif

>>1446153
Jesus fucking Christ your ass hasn't even been to a trade school, let alone a proper university.

>>1446095
Source for this?

>>1446191
I fucking made it up.

>>1446078
Tax dollars for personal property expenditures. But it is not embezzling at all.

>>1446075
Chinese keep buying usa food crops, while the countries that supply us are failing... hungry times ahead.

>>1445929
What's he's doing is copying those communists zero self ownership its the other guys fault.

>>1446024
Bro i'd trust mexico much more than the absolute crap big pharma is giving out.

>>1446032
Yeah there's really nothing we can do about it now

>>1446038
We shouldnt have either come on now!!!

>>1446055
We all know how long he spends in that kiddie pool too. lol

>>1446065
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/usaid-trump-funding-pause-500-million-food-spoilage-risk/

>>1446177
>>1446191
>>1446194
It's called AcreTrader. Performative stupidity is unattractive.

>>1446082
>balls
Trade makes us more powerful so therefore we have China at the balls because if they ditch us then we sell to US and they dont have soy anymore its that simple.

>>1446226
There's no market for that soy here, and China's already getting their beans from elsewhere.

>>1446239
Unfortunately for Democrats, the country is surviving. And this is nothing new. There's a fund specifically for this, and it's being used for it.

>>1446327
>Unfortunately for Democrats, the country is surviving.
You are such a fucking clown.

>>1446329
How so?

>>1446329
I guess instead of asking how I'm a "fucking clown" I'll talk about Democlowns for a moment.
1. Gas prices are down
2. Eggs prices are down
3. Tariffs aren't causing massive inflation
This is just a short list of disasters Democrats were using to campaign on. Turns out the eggs and gas prices were their fault all along, and tariffs are working as expected and generating tax revenue (which I suppose Democrats really only enjoy when it's coming from US citizens paychecks or something).

1446333
>This is just a short list of disasters Democrats were using to campaign on
5/5 special elections say you're a moron

>>1446335
Just checked, it looks like Democrats are dying and being replaced like Borg by other Democrats and the same with Republicans.
What special neglections are speaking of specifically out of the 8 that have occurred this year?

>>1446327
>>1446333
>>1446342
Now THIS is the chud cope I came here to see.

>>1445906
CNN never heard of an H-2A visa and just assumed some stuff from the looks of it.
Perhaps no one wants to come to this jewish led hellhole anymore and be a part of neo liberal capitalist bullshit.

>>1446354
>Now THIS is the chud cope I came here to see.
So no sources, only CHUDDING bullshit from a huge faggot. Bye.

>>1446355
No one cares about neoliberalism but chuds.

>>1446451
Most commies call it "late stage capitalism" so I disagree.

>>1446467
There are no commies except the ones living rent free in your head.

>>1446478
Your mommy's a commie, she's been heavily socialized, if you know what I mean.