Tariffs Could Fund Farm Economic Aid, Ag Sec. Rollins Says

By Ryan Hanrahan

The Financial Times’ Susannah Savage reported that “the Trump administration is drawing up plans to use tariff revenue to fund a programme to support U.S. farmers as they head into harvest facing falling export sales and rising input costs, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said.”

“‘There may be circumstances under which we will be very seriously looking to and announcing a package soon,’ Rollins told the Financial Times on Wednesday. ‘We are reviewing markets every day,’” Savage reported. “She added that financing the bailout through ‘tariff income that is now coming into America’ was ‘absolutely a potential.’”

“The move follows mounting pressure from farm groups after China curbed purchases of new crop U.S. soybeans and as tariffs have pushed up costs for fertiliser, machinery and other imported inputs,” Savage reported. “With the soybean harvest already under way, farmers warn the crisis is deepening.”

Rollins comments come after Agri-Pulse’s Steve Davies and Noah Wicks reported that “House Ag Committee Chair Glenn Thompson is stepping back from saying that tariff revenue could be used for emergency farm aid.”

“Thompson, R-Pa., told Agri-Pulse last week that he wanted to use tariff revenue to fund an aid package,” Davies and Wicks reported. “But he told reporters Thursday it now didn’t appear that would be legally possible. ‘We’re just looking at the statutes surrounding it, and it’s just hard to do,’ Thompson said.”

“It’s also possible that USDA could use its Commodity Credit Corp. (CCC) spending authority to make farm payments. That’s what the first Trump administration did to compensate growers for the impact of the trade war with China in 2018 and 2019,” Davies and Wicks reported. “But Thompson acknowledged that the CCC account would first have to be replenished by Congress, and it’s not clear when that will happen. ‘It’s pretty well spent down,’ he said.”

More Lawmakers Calling for Farm Aid

Reuters’ Bo Erickson and Leah Douglas reported that “as U.S. farmers enter autumn harvest season worried that low crop prices and a trade war could hurt their livelihoods, Republican farm-state lawmakers are urging President Donald Trump’s administration to issue economic aid for farmers by year’s end.”

“Discussions between lawmakers and the administration highlight the trade-offs Republicans face between loyalty to the president and representing constituents who have contacted their offices and flocked to town halls in their districts, worried about the impact of Trump’s trade policies,” Erickson and Douglas reported. “Four farm-state members of Congress told Reuters they are in talks with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other administration officials about an aid package, ideally by the end of December.”

“Republican Senator John Hoeven, who leads agriculture funding on the appropriations committee, said he is discussing with the administration an approach similar to that taken during Trump’s first term, when the federal government issued $23 billion in payments to farmers to offset losses from a trade war with China,” Erickson and Douglas reported. “He said emergency aid could also be added to a government spending bill.”

Survey Shows Corn Farmers Worried about Economic Crisis

Agri-Pulse’s Oliver Ward reported that “new polling shows that the majority of U.S. corn producers see an economic crisis on the horizon – or at least the possibility of one. In a survey published Wednesday commissioned by the National Corn Growers Association, the Farm Journal polled more than 1,000 farmers on whether they think the U.S. is on the brink of a farm crisis.”

“Almost half the farmers surveyed in late August and early September said the U.S. is on the brink of a crisis. A further third said the farm economy might be heading that way, while just 15% said they don’t think a crisis is coming. The farmers included in the survey have corn as their primary crop,” Ward reported. “Accordingly, 76% of respondents said they were ‘very’ or ‘moderately’ concerned about the state of the farm economy. This concern has grown for most farmers in the last year, respondents say, with 65% reporting heightened concern.”

“‘It’s a four-alarm fire in the countryside,’ NCGA President Kenneth Hartman Jr. said in a statement. ‘Farmers are in a lot of economic pain right now.’”

Tariffs Could Fund Farm Economic Aid, Ag Sec Rollins Says was originally published by Farmdoc.