$12 Billion Farm Bailout: Short Fix or Band-Aid?

American farmers don’t yet know how much of the $12 billion aid package – “bridge payments,” the Trump administration calls them – that they will receive. But they may at least get some piece of mind that some assistance could come early next year as they have dealt with a bevy of financial pressures from higher tariffs and inflated borrowing, input, and equipment costs

It may or may not cover the losses that they endured for lost or reduced overseas buyers.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a $12 billion package. The administration focuses more on what it calls “market disruptions” rather than reduced exports because of its higher tariff policies.

Regardless of the semantics, U.S. Department of Agriculture laid out the new FBA (Farmer Bridge Assistance) program and said eligible producers should expect payments by February 28, 2026, with commodity-specific payment rates to be published by the end of the month.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told CBS’s Major Garrett on his “The Takeout” podcast that her boss’ trade policies, “have not in fact compromised our farmers.”

Farmers Wait for Soybean Exports to Return

American soybean farmers had waited since May for China to resume soybean purchases that it halted due to President Trump’s tariffs. That makes farmers like Doug Rebout in Wisconsin – a state that could see a record soybean yield in 2025 – anxious about the future as he has already seen beans drop over the past few years from $14.50 a bushel to around $9.30.

Rebout told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he grows about 80,000 bushels of soybeans annually and expects to lose $400,000 due to the drop in prices as supply piles up across the country without sufficient export demand.

"As farmers, we don't want to keep receiving bailouts,” he said. “We want to get paid for our costs, be able to pay our own bills and make a little bit of money."

Iowa soybean and corn farmer Cordt Holub said the new aid package was an early Christmas present. He remains optimistic that Trump’s trade policies will eventually lead to expanded markets for producers.

Holub, who sat next to the president during the aid package announcement said, “It’s Christmas early for farmers. “…With this bridge payment, we’ll be able to farm another year.”

Holub later told Gray Media Iowa that he wanted to travel to Washington, D.C. for the bridge payment announcement so that he could share what it is like to farm right now.

Farmers Still Need Long-Term Solutions

For many farmers the aid will be welcome in the short term. But it does not directly restore lost export markets or address structural cost pressures such as fertilizer, fuel, and interest rates.

Critics of Trump’s unique trade policies argue that the very trade policies blamed for market losses are the reason taxpayers must now be tapped for compensation, leaving producers squeezed by both lost demand and policy uncertainty.

China Found Other Soybean Export Partners

Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, pointed out how China has formed growing trade partnerships with other countries like Brazil and Argentina for soybeans, rather than the United States.

“China’s been refusing large U.S. purchases in favor of other trade partners,” said Hendrix. “This is a lamentable, but kind of predictable, consequence of the United States engaging in this trade war and weaponizing trade policy.”

Hendrix added, “Our trade partners are going to seek to diversify both for self-insurance. We’re talking about food. We’re talking about survival here and to punish the U.S. for kind of changing the rules of the game so unilaterally.”

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