Donald Trump boasted in a post on Truth Social Tuesday that he “rewarded” America’s farmers with a bailout of $28 billion in taxpayer aid after an earlier damaging round of tariffs he imposed during his first administration.
He’s now poised to do it again for his “patriots,” who support him at the ballot box. An overwhelming majority in all but 11 of the 444 farming-dependent counties last year backed Trump, according to an analysis by Investigate Midwest.
Because of farmers’ “GREATNESS they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation,” Trump wrote in his post Tuesday.
“I rewarded our farmers with a payment of $28 Billion Dollars, all through the China deal. It was a great transaction for the USA,” he insisted.
Trump claimed that China “reneged” afterward on the deal the two nations reached following the trade conflict, though he provided no details.
So here we are again, Trump wrote, vowing: “The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Tuesday that administration officials are discussing “relief” for farmers hurt by Trump’s trade war.
Trump’s generosity with taxpayer funds comes even as he’s slashing federal agencies, tens of thousands of federal jobs, federal contracts and public services in a stated move to save money.
Trump critic Ron Filipkowski slammed the billions on the horizon for farmers who voted for Trump even as he vowed to impose the tariffs they’re complaining about as “MAGA socialism” in a post on X. “Throw up protectionist trade barriers that hurt farmers, then bail out farmers with government handouts,” he wrote.
China’s retaliatory tariffs of 125 percent on U.S. imports after Trump’s imposition of 145 percent levies on Chinese goods will especially hit American farmers because China buys mainly agricultural products from the U.S., including soybeans, oilseeds and grains – as well as $1.6 billion in beef last year.
Soybean exports from the U.S. already took a massive hit from Trump’s first-term trade war with boosted tariffs in 2018 when China turned to Brazil instead of American farmers to supply its soybeans. Brazilian soybean exports to China have grown by more than 280 percent since 2010 while U.S. soybean exports to China have remained flat.
This time around, some analysts expect China could slash its imports of American agricultural goods like soybeans to nearly zero, which could trigger bailouts that would dwarf payments to farmers the last time around.
Meanwhile, farmers have already been hit with massive cuts to school food programs by the administration, and are grappling with devastating floods in Texas and across the Midwest.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty around and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip. I am definitely worried,” Texas farmer Travis Johnson told The Guardian. He lost more than 1,000 acres of crops after a year’s rain dumped on the area within 48 hours in the Rio Grande Valley last month.
“I can see how some tariffs might help us compete with Mexico, but are we really getting targeted by every other country or are we on the wrong side of this?” he wondered.
