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Trump giving $12B in aid to farmers

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion farm aid package Monday — a boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their crops while getting hit by rising costs after the president raised tariffs on China as part of a broader trade war.

He unveiled the plan Monday afternoon at a White House roundtable with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers from farm states, and farmers who thanked him for the help.

“With this bridge payment, we’ll be able to farm another year,” Iowa farmer Cordt Holub told Trump during the event.

Rollins put the immediate value of the program at $11 billion — money that the White House said will offer one-time payments to row-crop farmers. Another $1 billion will be put aside for specialty crops as the administration works to better understand the circumstances for those farmers, Rollins said. The aid will move by the end of February, she said.

“We looked at how they were hurt, to what extent they were hurt,” Trump said, explaining how the administration came up with the size of the package.

Trump said the money for the program will come from tariff revenue.

Later this month, the USDA will use a formula that estimates production costs to come up with a per-acre payment for each type of crop. Payments will be capped at $155,000 per farm or person, and only entities that make less than $900,000 a year will be eligible for aid. That will limit payments to large farms, which was a criticism of farm aid Trump delivered in his first term.

Farmers have backed Trump politically, but his aggressive trade policies and frequently changing tariff rates have come under increasing scrutiny because of the impact on the agricultural sector and because of broader consumer worries.

The size of the $12 billion aid package is roughly the value of total U.S. soybean exports to China in 2024 and half the total exports of U.S. farm goods to China in 2024.

Starting at $3.23/week.

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