The aid package is meant to help farmers affected by tariffs and other factors.
President Donald Trump on Dec. 8 unveiled a $12 billion economic assistance package for farmers.
The Trump administration has been embroiled in a trade war with China, in which both nations have exchanged tariffs on each other’s exports. It has resulted in some U.S. farmers struggling to sell their crops as Beijing pulled back purchases of products such as American soybeans this year and bought from other markets and nations, including Argentina.
Trump made the announcement at a roundtable at the White House to discuss his economic aid package for American farmers. He was joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, members of Congress, and farmers from the corn, cotton, sorghum, soybean, rice, cattle, wheat, and potato industries.
During the ceremony, Trump said his administration was taking a “very vital action to protect and defend American farmers and reduce prices for the American consumers.”
“I’m delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs … and we’re going to be giving and providing it to the farmers in economic assistance,” the president said.
“They’re the backbone of our country. So we’re going to use that money to provide $12 billion in economic assistance to American farmers.”
Up to $11 billion of the total aid package will go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program, which will offer one-time, targeted bridge payments to row crop farmers recovering from trade actions on American agriculture by foreign governments, preexisting inflation, and various market disruptions, an administration official told The Epoch Times ahead of the roundtable.
The remaining $1 billion will be dedicated to crops not included in the Farmer Bridge Assistance program, and the USDA will make final determinations based on market conditions.
During the roundtable, Meryl Kennedy, the owner of a Louisiana rice agribusiness, said that the industry believes that certain countries, including India, Thailand, and China, have been dumping foreign rice exports into the United States, making it difficult for American rice to reach certain markets, such as Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory.
“Puerto Rico used to be one of the largest markets for U.S. rice. We haven’t shipped rice into Puerto Rico in years. So this has been happening for years,” Kennedy said.
By Jacob Burg
