The Trump administration announced this week it would direct $12 billion of one-time payments to American farmers struggling under the current trade war induced by its tariff policies.
Caleb Ragland, the president of the American Soybean Association, says the bailout is welcome news, “but it’s far from covering the total problem.”
“They say an average soybean acre lost $109 this year, and this economic bridge is probably about 25% of that total,” Ragland said. “So it'll help, but it's kind of putting a Band-Aid on an open wound.”
Ragland, who grows soybeans, corn and wheat on his family farm in Magnolia, Kentucky, said what farmers “really need long term is market based solutions for exports.”
American soybean farmers have been especially hard hit by the trade war with China this year, after their market lost $20 billion in President Donald Trump’s first term when China responded to tariffs by turning to South America for soybeans. China stopped purchasing American soybeans this May, which instead increased imports from Argentina, the country that received a $20 billion bailout from the Trump administration in October.
Read the rest at LPM News.
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