White House to announce $12 billion aid package for U.S. farmers
President Trump is expected on Monday to announce a $12 billion aid package for American farmers, moving to support a sector that’s been hurt by tariffs and a U.S. trade war with China.
A senior administration official told CBS News that Mr. Trump will unveil the plan during a White House event, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins expected to join Mr. Trump and several farmers at the announcement.
Roughly $11 billion of the government assistance is set aside for the Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program, which the White House has said will offer one-time payments to farmers for row crops.
“You’ve got to start financing for planning next year when things will be very good,” Bessent told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan on Sunday.
Farmers have lost billions of dollars in soybean sales this year due to a boycott by China, which stopped buying U.S. soybeans in May in retaliation for steep new tariffs by the Trump administration. China is the largest importer of U.S. soybeans, purchasing more than half of all American exports of the crop in the last five years, according to the Iowa Farm Bureau, a farmer advocacy organization.
Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a preliminary trade agreement in October, which the White House said involved the resumption of U.S. soybean sales to China. The White House said in November that China would purchase at least 12 million metric tons of soybeans in the last two months of 2025.
However, Chinese imports of U.S. soybeans could fall short of what the country normally purchases, CBS News correspondent Lana Zak reported in November.
The trade war with China dealt a double whammy to U.S farmers, who were already facing high input costs and weak profit margins. Farmers recently told 60 Minutes they are suffering major losses on corn, soybeans and cotton. Prices of the crops have fallen in the last two years, according to data from the American Farm Bureau Federation, an advocacy organization.
Bessent said on Face the Nation on Sunday that domestic soybean prices have risen as much as 15% since the agreement with the Chinese.
The Trump administration started considering a financial aid package for farmers in October, with sources telling CBS News that it could include more than $10 billion in relief. However, that proposal was put on hold due to the 43-day U.S. government shutdown, which ended in mid-November.
