Creating problems and then solving them with taxpayer money: a tradition continues.
The situation in the US isn't looking good at all. Especially American farmers who are having a brutal year. Farm production expenses are estimated to hit $467.4 billion in 2025 – up $12 billion from last year. Farm bankruptcies rose in the first half of the year to the highest level since 2021. Foreign retaliation from tariffs has hammered exports. Immigration-related labor shortages aren't helping. And commodity prices have cratered.
Anyway, US President Donald Trump on December 08 unveiled a $12 billion aid package for American farmers, the latest government effort to shore up a key political constituency hurt by the financial fallout from his tariff policies.
Of the said amount, 11 billion aid is for row crop farmers and the other $1 billion for other crops.
Farm groups and Republican farm-state lawmakers have sought the aid in part to support farmers with purchases of seeds, fertilizer and other expenses for next year's growing season.
Kevin Deinert, who's president of the South Dakota Soybean Growers Association, would like to get back to relying on international markets for income.
"You know, as farmers we want trade, not aid", he says.
The Trump administration did strike a new trade deal with China in November. They say China will buy 12 million metric tons of American soybeans by the end of February, and 25 million metric tons in the next three years. If it holds, that would only bring farmers back to roughly the same situation they were in before the President started a second trade war.
Deinert says he's heard some grain is finally moving to Asia again. But his bins are still full.
"We haven't seen anything on paper", he says. "Right now we're just trading on headlines".
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