Trump Administration Rolls Out $16 Billion Farm-Aid Program
May 23 2019 - 12:53PM
Dow Jones News
By Josh Zumbrun
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration announced a $16 billion
aid package for the U.S. farm sector, which primarily will make
direct payments to farmers to offset losses resulting from the
trade conflict with China.
The administration has moved to shore up American agriculture
after a breakdown in talks earlier this month between Washington
and Beijing. Amid expectations that American farmers will be
hindered selling crops to China's 1.4 billion-person market,
commodity prices sank to their lowest level in more than 10
years.
President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to
create the program "because he knew farmers would bear the brunt of
this lack of trade deal with China once again," said Agriculture
Secretary Sonny Perdue. "Farmers themselves will tell you they'd
rather have trade than aid," he said, but in the absence of a deal
"they'll need some support."
The program is a reprise of a similar initiative in 2018 which
had authorized $12 billion in funding. In first tweeting the idea
of a farm-aid package this year, Mr. Trump had proposed a program
to use tariff revenue to buy crops and distribute them
internationally for humanitarian purposes. The USDA program won't
not use tariff revenue directly, nor will it have an international
humanitarian component.
Write to Josh Zumbrun at Josh.Zumbrun@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2019 12:38 ET (16:38 GMT)
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