The Trump administration is planning to roll out the first tranche of bailout payments for farmers in the coming weeks using likely billions of dollars in funding from an internal USDA account, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
But it won’t be enough: USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation fund — which President Donald Trump previously tapped to provide $28 billion in farm aid during his first-term trade war with China — has just $4 billion left in the account. Trump officials, including those at the Treasury Department, are looking at how to tap tariff receipts or other funding to supplement the payments without triggering a messy fight in Congress.
The timing of the actual aid rollout is also tricky given that it’s unlikely to happen or even be possible during the ongoing government shutdown that’s shuttered vast swaths of the Agriculture Department.
Trump officials are still working on estimates of how big the first tranche of aid will be, according to the three people, who were granted anonymity to share private details. But the president has been posting his promises to aid American soybean farmers on social media in recent days.
Hill Republicans have been pushing Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other Trump officials for weeks to do something to aid farmers reeling from high input costs and the president’s tariffs, which have cut off American soybean farmers’ key markets in China as Beijing retaliates.
Trump has said he would use tariff revenue to provide cash bailouts to farmers, but Congress would likely need to vote to authorize such a move, triggering a major fight between Republicans and Democrats amid already dire government spending conversations.
GOP lawmakers could also move to refill the internal USDA fund in their government funding fight later this fall, but that too will be a battle with Democrats.
Hill Republicans have been quietly working on their own proposal to find additional funding for the farm bailouts, according to four other people with direct knowledge of the matter. Some Republicans estimate they will eventually need to provide $35 billion to $50 billion in aid to farmers hit by Trump’s tariffs.
