Farmers’ choice: Sell your vote for $12 billion. Or, say thank you for the $12 billion and vote against tariffs.
“You’re selling us out!” shouted America’s angry cattlemen in response to Trump’s Argentine beef.
Soybean producers were just as angry as tariffs sank their markets and China stopped buying soybeans as payback.
Trump’s Plan:
- Crash U.S. farm markets.
- U.S. cattlemen — Trump drives prices down with tariffs, and gives $20 billion for Argentina, half of which looks like it will support Argentine cattlemen.
- U.S. soybean producers — Trump slaps massive tariffs on China; China responds by buying soybeans from anywhere else but the U.S.
- Placate consumers by purchasing Argentine beef (again with tax dollars) to help lower beef prices as a way of addressing “affordability” at the grocery stores.
- This would be the “affordability” Trump claims is “made up” by Democrats.
- Again, Trump makes farm producers the “goats.”
- Buy out American Ag producers with a short-term $12 billion of taxpayer aid.
This $12 billion is an appeasement to American producers. It has nothing to do with fair trade, planning, or stabilizing markets.
Trump is a transactional dealer. What he wants in exchange is votes for the midterm elections.
My home state of Iowa has the second-highest rate of farm bankruptcies in the country. Iowa gave Trump a +13% margin in the last election, with only five counties voting Democratic. 100% of Iowa’s rural counties supported Trump in 2024, with most of them voting +80% for him.
As a former Iowa farmer now living in DC, I have to ask, “Shouldn’t farmers have known better?” When I was a farmer, we recognized when we were being exploited, and we did our best not to repeat the same mistakes.
When Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer, declared a farm embargo as part of his “punish Iran” strategy, we farmers understood we were paying the price. We were the goats! We fought back, withholding grain to raise prices.
Carter lost the election in part because farmers remembered. Carter did not get a second vote.
In 2024, farmers and rural communities across the Midwest failed to learn from Trump’s first term when he used tariffs as a bargaining chip; Brazil learned to grow soybeans, capturing the markets U.S. producers depend on.
During Biden’s term, farmers and the Biden Administration’s market experts worked hard to recover lost soybean markets, and they succeeded, with China purchasing more than half of America’s soybeans by the end of Biden’s term.
But Trump did it again, imposing massive tariffs on China, and this year, China responded by refusing to buy U.S. soybeans; U.S. prices plummeted.
Crashing soybean prices weren’t enough for Trump; his next move was to worsen U.S. farm struggles by providing $20 billion to Argentina, half of which seems to have gone to Argentine cattlemen. Trump even boasted that he was buying Argentine beef to lower grocery store food prices in America.
The farm bankruptcy rate soars, not just in Iowa but in all farm states. Trump’s solution is to promise farmers $12 billion of extra farm aid paid for by taxpayers.
Farmers have two choices. U.S. agriculture producers can decide:
- To be sooo happy that Trump has “found” $12 billion of extra farm aid, but paybacks are hell. Trump will expect in return that farmers must vote Republican in the Midterms. This is called quid pro quo or a sell-out. $12 billion takes the bid.
- To choose Integrity and Graciousness, saying THANK YOU, but keeping your vote a matter of your own business.
As a former Iowa farmer, my “Farmers’ Choice” is to be glad Trump coughed up some money, but to keep my integrity. $12 billion will save some farmers from bankruptcy, but is nothing compared to the need to build reliable markets for a growing ag business to rely upon over the longer term.
Samantha Delouya, CNN: Trump’s Argentina beef deal angers America’s struggling farmers: ‘You’re selling us out!’Farmers have two choices. U.S. agriculture producers can decide:
Samantha Delouya, CNN: Trump’s Argentina beef deal angers America’s struggling farmers: ‘You’re selling us out!’
Ryan Hanrahan, Farm Policy News: Farm Bankruptcies Rising in 2025 – Farm Policy News
Alan RappeportKevin Draper and Ana Swanson, The New York Times: Trump Promises Farmers $12 Billion to Blunt Fallout From His Trade War
Donelle Eller, The Des Moines Register: With falling profits, Iowa farmers facing ‘extreme financial distress,’ more bankruptcies
Photo: Courtesy of USDA ERS