The Trump administration has started compensating U.S. farmers for damage tariffs are doing to their business, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Many farmers say the payments won’t make up for lost sales to China and other foreign markets they were counting on to buy the huge amounts of crops and meat being produced across the Farm Belt.
Bumper corn and soybean harvests and record pork production have pushed down prices for agricultural commodities. U.S. farm income is expected to drop 13% this year to $66 billion, according to the Department of Agriculture, extending a yearslong slump in the agricultural economy.
The USDA in August said it would pay farmers nearly $5 billion to offset losses from global trade disputes. The USDA says it has paid $35 million to farmers so far, especially in Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Nearly 49,000 farmers have applied for the aid.
Mike Paustian, an Iowa pork producer who sells some 30,000 pigs annually, expects to receive about $40,000. Depending on the size of his crops, Paustian says he could receive another $20,000 for his 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans. In recent years, a farm of that size could make some $4 million in annual sales on the livestock alone.
Paustian says he appreciates what he sees as a goodwill gesture from the Trump administration. But he adds he worries the trade fights will close doors to American pork and other farm goods while the world’s appetite for meat is growing.
However, trade-related losses to the U.S. pork industry alone are expected to total more than $2 billion this year, according to Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.
