All posts tagged "farmers"

These Trump voters 'formed a suicide pact' and Republicans are panicking: ex-GOP operative

Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson described Friday how the financial crisis among American farmers has become a political crisis for the GOP ahead of the midterm elections.

In his Substack Friday, the co-founder of anti-Trump organization The Lincoln Project, discussed how some of President Donald Trump's most loyal voters have been facing an alarming economic reality.

"Welcome to the 'Find Out' phase of the most expensive political experiment in American history. As we enter 2026, rural America is learning a hard truth: you can’t eat 'owning the libs,' and you can’t pay a mortgage with Facebook memes," Wilson wrote.

"In 2024, rural America didn’t just vote for Donald Trump—it formed a suicide pact with him," Wilson wrote. "In the nation’s 444 farming-dependent counties, Trump pulled in nearly 78% of the vote. Those same counties are now watching multi-generational family farms get fed into the woodchipper of MAGA-nomics. It’s the purest Leopards Eating People’s Faces moment yet, and the leopards are ordering seconds."

As the Trump administration implemented sweeping tariffs, it took a major hit on farmers' incomes.

"For farmers, this wasn’t 'winning'—it was a state-sponsored execution," Wilson wrote. "China, once the buyer of half of all U.S. soybean exports, walked away entirely. By 2026, major crops were bleeding red ink: corn down $169 an acre, soybeans $114, cotton nearly $400."

"Net farm income is projected to collapse by $41 billion this year—a 23% drop and one of the sharpest declines in decades. Farmers aren’t tightening belts; they’re checking whether the barn rafters will hold," he added.

But that wasn't the only blow to farmers. The Trump administration's aggressive immigration policies were the next strike. By threatening the people who work in the fields at-risk of arrest, farmers were left with even more problems.

"If tariffs were the heart attack, immigration policy was the stroke," Wilson wrote. "MAGA demanded mass deportations and got them—only to discover that Stephen Miller’s raids didn’t inspire local teenagers to pick blueberries in 100-degree heat. With roughly 70% of farmworkers foreign-born, the labor force vanished. In New Jersey and California, fruit rotted in the fields; one grower alone lost $5 million simply because no one was left to harvest."

The financial backlash hasn't just struck farmers — it's now a political liability for the GOP.

"For Republicans running in 2026, this is a slow-motion catastrophe. They’re chained to an incumbent who is bankrupting his most loyal voters," Wilson explained.

"The tragedy isn’t that experts warned this would happen. It’s the people paying the price who built Trump’s pedestal. They voted for the trade war, ICE, and the chaos," Wilson wrote.

'Pathetic': Farmer unloads on 'Republican sycophants' in blistering op-ed

Ben Palen — a Kansas native and a fifth-generation farmer and agriculture consultant — blasted President Donald Trump’s repeated tactic of putting farmers in distress and then dangling tax-funded salvation before them and hungry developers.

“[T]he Trump administration will provide several billion dollars in bailouts to farmers, with an emphasis on corn and soybean growers,” Palen wrote in the Kansas Reflector. “... Predictably, political dances followed the announcement, with various farm groups issuing statements supporting release of this money.”

“It’s pathetic,” Palen wrote. “It’s especially so when the Republican sycophants who represent Kansas farmers fall all over themselves to pay homage to Trump. How about some honest conversations about what this regime has done to American farmers via a patchwork of actions that show little understanding of international trade and so many other issues?”

Palen said there is no Republican “representative” from Kansas who is speaking the truth about the “folly from Washington D.C.,” like the damage Trump does to rural hospitals or the fact that people are going hungry because of the administration's policies. Meanwhile, farmers “are receiving just a few breadcrumbs."

"The fundamental challenges of trade policy remain unsolved, and our competitors are gleeful as they take market share from U.S. farmers," he wrote.

“The peril in farm country is real,” Palen warned. “In less than 12 months, damage done to Kansas farmers and their peers across the nation is only just beginning to be felt. This latest bailout completely fails to address the underlying issues. Again, I will ask Kansas politicians: When are you going to do your job for the people who voted for you?”

Palen lamented that those same politicians are eager to spend millions of dollars and expend state resources to woo the Kansas City Chiefs to a new stadium and the development of "entertainment districts."

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” said Palen. “Regardless of whether these deals are funded with grants, contributions from donors, tax incentives or other methods, there are adverse economic and social consequences often overlooked. … These large sums of money could be better spent. How about fixing crumbling infrastructure? How about encouraging companies to bring good-paying manufacturing jobs to the area? In the case of [Kansas University], how about big money donors helping students afford the high cost of an education, instead of being so focused on having one’s name on a sports venue?”

“Our society has some strange priorities. Maybe it’s time to focus on taking care of what we have instead of pouring enormous sums into brand new, shiny buildings,” Palen added.

Read Palen's column in the Kansas Reflector here.

'Are you listening?' Heated clash on CNN as Republican tries to deny hearing outrage

A heated CNN anchor gave fierce pushback on Tuesday afternoon to a Republican lawmaker who tried to deny hearing pleas from farmers who said they're struggling to make ends meet.

CNN's Brianna Keilar got in a fiery back-and-forth with Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) after she asked him during a live broadcast about what farmers are saying. Alford claimed that the Trump administration was working to give them more relief when the conversation got heated.

"We are giving the farmers their safety nets through 80% of the farm bill that was passed through the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill,'" Alford said. "Those safety nets are there an increase in reference prices. We are helping the American farmers, Donald J. Trump knows the importance of feeding America and the world, and we're gonna get it done."

Keilar didn't hold back in response.

"But that's not what farmers are telling you, right? I know that you've heard from them," she shot back. "They say they're hurting from tariffs. I know you had a town hall this summer, KMIZ reported about one farmer telling you it's not just that China was retaliating, they're not buying soybeans, even though that's back now, but tariffs actually drove up prices of fertilizer and other farm goods. So, I mean, of this idea of loans, but when you're paying more for goods that you paid a certain price for before, and your margins are pretty slim. Do you think the administration is understanding this? Do you think they're getting that message?"

Alford attempted to blame former President Joe Biden for farmers' current woes.

"They do, and they understand as I do, that it was Joe Biden that drove up the price of fertilizer and fuel with his war," he said.

"Well, no, that's not what this farmer told you. So what do you say to him?" Keilar said, pushing back again.

"Well, that's what I'm telling you. I'm telling you right now," Alford said.

"But that's not what this farmer told you, and he's the farmer who's telling you... excuse me. This farmer you heard him. He said this to you," she said.

"Yes, we need to look at fertilizer prices. Fuel has come down and will continue to come down thanks to Donald Trump," Alford said.

But Keilar still wasn't satisfied with Alford's response and pressed further.

"Are you listening to your constituents? Because he was very clear about why his prices were going up," she said.

"Brianna, I did 15 stops on a town hall tour, one of the few Congress members on the Republican side and the Democrat side to actually do that. Yes ma'am. I listened," he said. "I took 256 questions and sat there and listened. Listened to insults, listened to yelling, listened to name-calling, and answered when they wanted to be respectful. I remember that farmer. I understand his concern, but the large number of farmers in Missouri believe in Donald J. Trump and that he's going to get things done. We are doing that with beef prices."

'Hope he's listening': Farmer makes dire plea to Trump as US 'backbone' risks collapse

An American farmer made a dire plea to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying "hope he's listening," as America's "backbone" risks collapse.

Arkansas farmer Scott Brown told CNN it's unclear how he or other agriculture producers will survive Trump's ongoing tariff war, especially as the fall harvest begins.

"I hope to break even, but I mean, we don't know," Brown said. "We're not cutting soybeans yet, and I don't know what the yield is. We're just finishing up corn. I'm a pretty low-debt-load farmer. I farm 800 acres. My equipment's all paid for. I do it all by myself. I'm a first-generation farmer, so I don't have as big of problems as a lot of the guys do. But, I mean, I have friends that farm thousands of acres, 5,000, 10,000, 11,000 acres. They've got worlds of problems. I mean, I don't know that there's any way to yield yourself out of this."

For his friends, the tariff fallout could mean losing everything.

"I don't think that the average American understands when you go down to the bank and get a crop loan, you put all your equipment up, all your equity in your ground, you put your home up, your pickup truck, everything up," he said. "And if they can't pay out and if they've rolled over any debt from last year, they're going to call the auctioneer and they're going to line everything up and they're going to sell it."

Trump is reportedly considering a potential bailout for farmers, a key Republican voting bloc. But that's not enough, Scott said.

"Well, the stopgap needs to come because they've kind of painted the farmer in a corner," he added. "I mean, I want trade, not aid. I need a market. I need a place to sell this stuff. I can work hard enough and make a product. If you give me someplace to sell it, I'll take care of myself, but they've painted us in a corner with this China deal and China buying soybeans. I mean, they've torn a market in half."

China — the biggest buyer — has made zero soybean orders this year. Instead, they've pivoted to purchasing soybeans from South American countries, including Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. These countries plan to expand planting acreage for their crops and focus on planting soon for the 2025 and 2026 crops in the Southern Hemisphere.

The price per bushel of soybeans has also dropped, he added.

"The farmer can't continue to produce a crop below the cost of production. And that's where we're at. And we don't have anywhere to sell it. We're in a tariff war with China. We're in a tariff war with everybody else. I mean, where do they want me to market this stuff?" Scott asked.

This uncertainty also makes it hard to plan for 2026.

"Farming is done in a Russian roulette fashion to say a better set of words," Scott said. "If you pay out, then you get to go again. If you've got enough equity and you don't pay out, you can roll over debt. There's lots of guys farming that have between $400 and $700,000 worth of rollover debt. You know, and then and then you compound the problem with the tariffs. Look at this. When we had USAID, we provided 40% of the humanitarian food for the world. That's all grain and food bought from farmers, from vegetable farmers in the United States. The row crop farmers and grain and everything. So we abandoned that deal. And China accelerates theirs. So now I've got a tariff war that's killing my market."

He also wants the president to hear his message.

"I hope he's listening because, you know, agriculture is the backbone of rural America," Scott said. "For every dollar in agriculture, you get $8 in your rural community. I mean, we help pay taxes on schools, roads. We're the guys that keep the park store open, we're the guy that keeps the local co-op open, that 20 guys work at, and the little town I live in, we have a chicken plant, about 600 chicken houses, except for the school and the hospital. Almost our entire town of 7,000."

Agriculture is tied to everything in rural America, he explained.

"People's economy revolves around agriculture," Scott said. "I mean, I think he needs to listen. It's bigger than the farmer. It's all my friends. Whether they work in town or anything else. I mean, rural America depends on agriculture. And it doesn't matter if you're in Nebraska or you're in Arkansas."

'An unnecessary consequence': Federal shutdown now hitting Key GOP voting bloc

A high-ranking Republican who represents an agriculture-heavy state says the government shutdown is hitting a key GOP voting bloc — farmers — in an "unnecessary consequence."

The USDA's Farm Service Agency offices are closed and currently only available for "emergency scenarios," Politico reports. Thousands of these offices support the agriculture industry and give producers access to loans and other services.

“FSA employees are important to the farmers that we all represent. Again, that’s an unnecessary consequence of the Schumer shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told Politico on Thursday.

Republicans continue to argue that Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. Democrats have pushed back, saying Republicans refuse to negotiate over extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that will expire and insurance premiums that are expected to double.

Thune told Politico that the Trump administration will "try as best they can" to help farmers.

But he said the circumstances are not ideal.

“They’re being put into a situation where they’re going to have to make decisions that are not good for some of the constituencies that people represent out there,” he said.

American farmers are hitting a major pain point as the shutdown continues in its second day and harvest approaches, all while the tariff backlash looms. So far, farmers have received zero soybean orders from China.

“I hope that they can find ways to keep the FSA offices open and certainly encourage that. But you know, the quickest way to end any conversation about that is to reopen the government,” Thune said.

'No sign of Chinese buying': Trump credited for 'devastating' US farmers' soybeans market

President Donald Trump's tariffs have decimated U.S. farmers' soybean market and there is "no sign of Chinese buying."

The fall harvest has started without any orders from China, the world's biggest buyer, according to a new report published on agriculture.com's Successful Farming.

American farmers are reporting record yields for crops this fall but it's unclear who will buy them. The USDA estimates that American farmers are harvesting 4.3 billion bushels, however there is no indication if or when shipments to China will continue. Most years, China buys more than half of U.S. soybean exports — but not this year.

Brazil, however, has had record demand from China from January to August 2025 for Brazilian soybeans. And in the new report, experts "consider the possible consequences if a trade deal is not reached this fall."

"From the 2017/18 to the 2024/25 crop season, Brazil jumped its soybean production from 4.5 billion bushels to 6.3 billion bushels, according to the National Supply Company (Conab) – Brazil’s food supply and statistics agency."

There is speculation that Chinese buyers importing soybeans could be "accelerating shipments to avoid sourcing from the United States."

The ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. is testing farmers' faith in the Trump administration. During the first trade war in 2018 during Trump's first term, farmers took a hit and during President Joe Biden's term had begun to recover.

Now under Trump's second term, farmers have called for more assistance during the prolonged economic uncertainty.

"Some relief might come from federal government payments to producers, as happened during the first round of trade war, but in many cases, that assistance may not be enough to prevent an uptick in financial stress," according to the report.

Chinese buyers are expected to continue shifting soybean purchases to other South American countries, including Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. These countries are planning to expand planting acreage for their crops and focusing on planting soon for the 2025 and 2026 crop in the Southern Hemisphere.

Critics are pointing to Trump's trade policies as a major disruption to the U.S. agriculture industry.

"Until Trump's first term, the US was by far the world's largest exporter of soybeans. Now Brazil dominates," David Frum, writer at The Atlantic, wrote via X.

"Has Iowa thanked Trump/Vance for devastating their soybeans market?" Former U.S. Representative Barbara Comstock (R-VA) wrote on X.

'Don't know where it's going': Farmers stressed as Trump tariffs threaten record harvest

Farmers are reporting record yields for crops this fall but it's unclear who will buy them.

The ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. is testing farmers' faith in the Trump administration, Politico reports.

“When our members are in the fields harvesting, they will be staring at a visual representation of this economy and this looming farm crisis. They will be looking at literal piles of corn and other row crops,” said Lesly Weber McNitt, vice president of public policy at the National Corn Growers Association, in an interview with Politico. “They don’t know where it’s going.”

And with no soybean orders coming from China since May, "crop farmers have lost a significant export market, driving down the price of top U.S. crops like soybeans and corn, even as Trump’s tariffs drive up the cost of farm equipment and fertilizer." The American Soybean Association is now shifting its purchases to Brazil and other countries. In comparison, China purchased $12.64 billion in soybeans from American farmers in 2024.

Republican lawmakers and farmers warn that this could be a looming crisis for America's agriculture industry — crops could pile up and farmers could end up in the red.

But farmers are still not blaming Trump and his trade policies yet, "a sign of just how much grace the agriculture community continues to grant Trump, even as his ambitious efforts to restructure the global trade economy clash directly with their economic interests," Politico reports.

However, that patience and loyalty could wane.

President Donald Trump won farmers' support in the 2024 election, promising to improve wages and lower inflation. As the administration struggles to pursue trade negotiations, slapping tariffs and Wednesday urging the EU to slap 100% tariffs on China and India, Reuters reports.

Companies like John Deere — an agricultural industry supplier for farmers — report significant losses due to the higher tariffs, mostly on steel but also on aluminum, are impacting its profits. The company has lost $300 million so far and nearly another $300 million loss is expected by the end of 2025. The company laid off 238 employees in Illinois and Iowa factories over the summer.

As farmers see a lowering demand for some crops overseas, the company cites a 15 to 20 percent drop in large agricultural machinery purchases, the New York Times reports. That downward trend is expected to carry into 2026.

'Pitchforks and torches': Farmers in peril after DOGE worms into secret dataset

Elon Musk may have left the federal government, but his lackeys could make ruinous changes to government payments and loans that farmers and ranchers rely on to survive.

A source working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided evidence to NPR showing an individual from the DOGE team had high-level access to the National Payment Service, in violation of normal protocols, that allows them to view and modify data entries inside the system, gain access to sensitive personal information and even cancel loans.

"When we talk about farm loan application records, there is no more personal information anywhere than in that database," said former USDA senior official Scott Marlow. "The farmer's entire financial life and the life of their kids and their family, every time they've missed a payment, every time they've had a hard time, every time they've gotten in financial trouble … it's there."

It's not clear whether staffers that had worked for DOGE are now full-time employees of the USDA, where they're now internally known as the as the Efficiency Team or E team, but agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins has said she would give DOGE staffers "full access and transparency," in apparent violation of the agency's longtime policies around data and privacy.

"Putting aside the serious privacy concerns, we've also seen what happens when DOGE gets its hands on federal assistance programs," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). "Funding gets cut off altogether with no warning or it comes in months too late. Letting DOGE staff — who have zero expertise in [agriculture] — call the shots on who gets a financial lifeline is an outright attack on rural America."

Jordan Wick, a former software engineer for the self-driving car company Waymo, has been identified by the media and court documents as a DOGE staffer with high-level access to the National Payment Service system giving him the ability to deny loans outright cancel payments for various subsidies, such as emergency or disaster assistance and incentives for conservation practices.

The payment system is housed at the Farm Service Agency (FSA), which publishes some information about farms and ranches that receive government subsidies, but the data housed inside the National Payment Service system is far more detailed and sensitive than what is made publicly available.

"Basically, what's in the [National Payment Service system] is everything," said Marlow, who served as the deputy FSA administrator for farm programs under Joe Biden. "I cannot understate the emphasis and the seriousness with which USDA had historically taken the handling of private information."

The dataset could include information that could be used to target individuals for their race or immigration status, experts told NPR, and potentially expose business secrets or other sensitive information about contracts.

"USDA has a lot of data that people should be very concerned about protecting for a lot of different reasons," said one current USDA employee on the condition of anonymity. "Farmers' financial and production data should be protected at all costs, for privacy reasons and because of competition. If you got access to disaster payments, you would be able to layer a lot of data and arrive at a lot of valuable conclusions about productivity and U.S. farmland, futures markets, and commodity prices. You can hedge a lot of bets and make a lot of money if you know what's happening with U.S. agriculture."

DOGE could potentially combine that sensitive data with other government information, including Internal Revenue Service and Social Security records, to create detailed dossiers about individual farms and ranchers, as well as their personal and business networks and the people they employ.

"If [the Biden] administration had said, we're going to share all your information with somebody that has access to everything across the federal government, it would probably have resulted in people with pitchforks and torches outside my office," said Zach Ducheneaux, former administrator of the FSA and a South Dakota rancher.

Some producers are already struggling due to disruptions caused by Trump administration policies, and any disruptions to the National Payment System could disrupt entire growing seasons if a farmer is delayed from planting crops by "even a day," Ducheneaux said.

"That [could've] been the one good day to get the crops in," he said, "and now you get a week and a half of rain. You're 10 growing days behind. We're behind the curve that actually impacts outcomes in the future. It's why these timely decisions are so critical."

Dairy farmer's lawsuit claims Trump is discriminating against whites

A Wisconsin farmer is suing the Trump administration's Department of Agriculture over its continued use of diversity, equity and inclusion programs that he says are keeping white, male farmers from receiving loan forgiveness.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the USDA Monday "on behalf of white dairy farmer, Adam Faust," according to the Associated Press.

The AP quoted Faust saying in a statement, “The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government. After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”

Since taking office in January, Trump has worked to dismantle DEI programs throughout the government in keeping with the president's promise to "focus on merit."

Faust's lawsuit alleged that the current USDA continues to implement Biden-era DEI programs subjecting "2 million white male American farmers...to discriminatory race-based policies" by putting "white men at a disadvantage" and violating "the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex."

As an example, the lawsuit alleged that Faust and other white, male farmers are charged a $100 "administration fee" to participate in one program that exempts women and minority farmers from paying the same fee.

In another example, Faust "participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities," according to the report.

Both instances put Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleged.

The AP reported that Faust and several other farmers "successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan."

A Trump administration spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to the report.

Read the AP report here.

Trump explodes as he's bombarded by 'nasty questions' on Air Force One

President Donald Trump didn't hide his disgust when asked Friday why he was allowing white South African farmers into the United States but "closed off that door" to many other refugees.

A U.S.-funded charter flight brought close to 60 Afrikaner families to the the U.S. state of Idaho earlier this week under a humanitarian program designed for people fleeing war or persecution.

Afrikaners are white South Africans of Dutch descent.

"What message does that send? Why is that fair?" the reporter is heard asking on an audio recording made aboard Air Force One as Trump returned to the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East.

EXCLUSIVE: Breastfeeding mom of US citizen sues Kristi Noem after being grabbed by ICE

“I think if I see people in distress, I don’t care what color, what they look like, what anything—their size, their height, their eyes. I don’t care,” he said.

“But, I think that from all evidence, the farmers in South Africa are being treated brutally. And it’s been reported, and nobody wants to cover it, but they happen to be white. And if they were Black, I’d do the exact same thing. And we treat people very well when we see there’s a genocide going on,” he said. “So if it’s a genocide, that’s terrible. And I happen to believe it could very well be.”

In February, the South African courts ruled that talk of a "white genocide" is merely a myth.

Trump then branded the reporter's question as “nasty.”

“And I’m not looking for reporting because, believe me, it’s easier for me not to do anything. It’s a lot easier because I don’t get nasty questions like that,” the president said.

“But the fact is that we’re about saving lives, and we’re gonna do that. So we’ve made a home, and we’ll make a home for other people that are treated badly, no matter what their color.”

Listen to the audio here.