One month into a war that has sent fuel prices through the roof and sparked fears of fertilizer shortages that could wreak havoc on the world’s food supply, President Donald Trump is attempting to convince American farmers that everything is fine and they should be grateful to him for taxpayer handouts meant to soften the blow from his tariff policies.
The president took to the Truman Balcony at the White House on Friday to address what he billed as “the single largest gathering of American farmers that the White House had ever seen” and buck up attendees by touting new policies which he claimed would save farmers money and make it easier for them to remain in business despite the spiraling input costs as a result of his own handiwork.
He claimed farmers had been “crushed” by the policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden, who he accused of having “crippled the American agriculture industry with brutal restrictions” and failing to negotiate “even a single new trade deal on your behalf.”
“Now the American farmers, ranchers, growers and producers, once again of a true friend and champion in the Oval Office,” Trump said, as he bragged about having rescinded environmental regulations on water use, enacting tax cuts and deductions that benefit agricultural operators, and “virtually ending” the estate tax which Republicans have long opposed.
Trump also claimed that American farmers “do not want handouts” but only seek “a level playing field,” but just moments later he boasted about using revenues from the illegal import taxes he’d imposed — which have been struck down by the Supreme Court — to give farmers the handouts he’d just said they did not want.
“We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars from the tariffs. And as I said, we gave you $12 billion in farm relief, and that happened just recently because you were hurt by certain countries unfairly. And I said you were unfairly hurt, and we gave you $12 billion and that that made up for it,” Trump said.
The program of which Trump was boasting did not actually use tariff revenues to dole out cash assistance to farmers. The administration had announced the initiative in December during a White House roundtable event featuring Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, after which Rollins told reporters that the funds for the $12 billion bailout will come from the Commodity Credit Corporation, an agency within the Department of Agriculture that finances farm safety net programs, often through borrowing as much as $30 billion from the treasury and private lenders.
That initiative mirrored Trump’s response to tariff-induced hardships felt by farmers during his first term, when he gave $28 billion in taxpayer handouts to farmers harmed by his tariff policies in an effort to maintain their support ahead of the 2020 election.
Continuing, Trump launched into a meandering soliloquy on his administration’s efforts to help farmers retain the ability to repair and maintain farm equipment that is increasingly complex and computerized, while blaming those technological developments on environmentalist “terrorists.”
At the same time, he paradoxically touted new renewable fuel standards announced by his administration that will allow more corn-based ethanol fuel to be sold year-round mixed into gasoline.
He claimed those new regulations would “generate over $10 billion of rural economic benefit, create an estimated 100,000 new jobs and massively increase our nation’s energy supply,” even as he announced “massive new loan guarantees” for farmers through the Small Business Administration.
As he expounded on the benefits of that new program in various states, his mention of the state of Minnesota led him off on an angry tangent about Governor Tim Walz, who he called “crazy,” and Attorney General Keith Ellison, who he maligned as a “dirty cop” before telling attendees that his administration would “take back” the Gopher State “from Somalia.”
“Somalia is considered the worst, the worst country. It’s not even a country like the worst country in the world … they come over here, and they steal $19 billion,” he said.
