(WASHINGTON D.C.) — The Trump Administration is reportedly drawing up plans to potentially use tariff revenue to fund a program to support U.S. farmers, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
“There may be circumstances under which we will be very seriously looking to and announcing a package soon,” Rollins said financing the bailout with “tariff income that is now coming into America” was “absolutely a potential.”
The report from Financial Times follows pressure from farm groups after China stopped purchases of soybeans from the U.S. in their tit-for-tat trade dispute, and as tariffs have pushed up costs for fertilizer, machinery and other imported inputs. Agriculture has emerged as a major point of contention between China and the U.S. as the superpowers are locked in a tariff war.
Earlier this week on Agriculture of America, Secretary Rollins also indicated that a potential aid package was being discussed as an option for farm country that is on the brink of a farm crisis.
“The middle of our country is just devastated right now as our farmers there, especially our commodity crops. I mean, you mentioned sorghum, but it’s true for corn, true for wheat, true for soybeans, cotton guys. I mean, it’s just, it is a really tough situation,” said Rollins.
Rollins added that “And part of the problem is, there are a lot of reasons for that. The no new trade deals in the last administration, the cost of inputs up 30%, fertilizer out of control, but the trade renegotiation and the trade alignment. And listen, American farmers and ranchers have backed this president. We’ve heard this president say over and over that, you know, if farmers are his favorite people, they’re his people, he’ll do whatever is necessary to protect them. Well, now we’re running into harvest, right? And we don’t have any purchase orders from China because of the continuing trade negotiations. There may need to be some programs that we release very, very quickly to ensure that these farmers have, again, a bridge in terms of payment or low interest loan or whatever it might be. Again, we’re figuring that out for the very, very near term, that while the markets do open back up, it might take another few months or a year for that product to, again, start moving across the world. So we are on it.”
Already, farm bankruptcies as of July exceed those over the full year of 2024 as the cost price squeeze continues in farm country. “U.S. soybean farmers are standing at a trade and financial precipice,” according to American Soybean Association President Caleb Ragland, a soybean farmer from Kentucky. He told U.S. News and World Report that “prices continue to drop, and at the same time farmers are paying significantly more for inputs and equipment.”
Hear the conversation with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins earlier this week on Agriculture of America, starting at the 10 minute mark below:
