$12B farm bailout called 'Band-Aid' By CHRISTOPHER VONDRACEK The Minnesota Star Tribune WASHINGTON, D.C. American farmers will receive a $12 billion bailout, the White House said Monday, after a sour year for Minnesota soy bean farmers dealing with already fragile markets and global tariffs. On the road to St. Louis for a soybean conference, Wells, Minn, soybean farmer Darin Johnson called the funds a "good start." But he cautioned the overall number smaller than the $28 billion President Donald Trump's administra tion offered during his first term in 2018 and 2019-would leave many farmers still scram bling for operating loans. "It's going to be a little tougher to weather this time because of interest [rates] and costs we're having to deal with in borrowing money," said Johnson, president of the Minnesota Soybean Grow ers Association. To survive the tariffs, high cost for fertilizer and low price for beans, farmers across rural Minnesota will need to lean into equity parents and grand parents built up to weather the next year, Johnson said. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, in a statement ahead of the official announce ment Monday afternoon, blamed Joe Biden's administration for growing a $1.2 billion trade deficit. "In contrast, President Trump is helping our agricul ture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farm ers," Kelly said. In Minnesota, row-crop farmers have seen stubbornly low prices on the state's big gest commodity crops, corn and soybeans. But a framework announced this fall on a plan for China to begin re-purchasing U.S. soybeans-after a freeze out in the wake of Trump's tar iffs has pushed the price of soybeans to stronger territory, around $11 a bushel. Soybeans are perennially one of Minnesota's largest exports. Many analysts predict this fall's harvest to be one of the strongest on record, but the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' survey of agricultural SEE BAILOUT ON AB

bankers found pessimism abound for the sector's profit ability. In all, the survey said, 79% of lenders said incomes fell in the third quarter compared with the same time in 2024. Jennifer Zwagerman, direc tor of the Drake Agricultural Law Center, said a "Band Aid" was an apt description of aid payment that bridges a gap but doesn't address "underlying reasons behind U.S.'s slumping ag economy. "For a long time, the US. was the primary, the go-to for the international purchases, Zwa german said. "But over time, whether it be China's purchases of soy for other commodities), there are competitors out there now, and that's something that our markets need to just plan for and adjust to." The White House announced $12 billion in total, with $11 billion coming from a US. Department of Agriculture Farmer Bridge Assistance Program and another $1 billion toward specialty crop growers, who've been especially compromised in the past year. Throughout Trump's trade war, soybean farmers have become the face of pain, as China retaliated by zeroing out soybean orders. An October plan paved the way for China to purchase 12 million metric tons this year and 25 million in the next three years. But China has yet to fulfill its end of the deal, though Trump administration officials remain hopeful. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS" "Face the Nation" on Sunday that China used soybean farmers "as pawns in trade negotiations, For many, this is a re-run of the first Trump administration. In 2018 and 2019, after imposing tariffs on China and feeling the lash of retaliatory tariffs on American agricul tural goods, Trump similarly bailed out farmers with tens of millions in aid payments. It remains uncertain how effective those payments were at stimulating long-term profitability in the market. Gary Wertish, a Renville County farmer and president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, said producers were dealing with an unprecedented amount of instability, coming from Washington, D.C.,…

Official farmers' motto:

Welfare for me, but not for thee.

Socialism for me, but not for thee.

$12B US taxpayer dollars are going to farmers, who voted for the situation they're in.😡 No more mitigation for their actions. Let them stew in it. #FAFO #F47 #FarmerHypocrisy #WelfareQueens #ETTD