The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Offers Farmers $12-Billion Bailout To Offset Pain From Trade War

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

President Trump has announced a $12-billion bailout plan for farmers, designed to offset the impacts they have felt from a trade war with China. We discuss how this program fits into Trump’s broader economic policy agenda, and whether it detracts from his message that tariffs will be a boon for the country’s economy.This episode: national political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Please let us know what you think of our show and how we can make it better by filling out this quick survey. As a token of our appreciation, three respondents will be randomly selected to receive a $25 gift card. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com Hey there, it's Sarah McCammon. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. We want to hear from you, the supporters of this show, to see what we're doing well and how we could improve for next year.

If you can, please take a short anonymous survey at npr.org slash December survey. That's all one word. It takes less than 10 minutes, and especially if you're new to the show or you haven't taken one of these surveys before, you'd be doing all of us a huge favor by filling it out. We will be giving a $25 gift card to three randomly selected respondents as a token of our appreciation. So extra incentive to fill that out. Again, the link is npr.org slash December survey. You can also click on the link in our episode notes.

Thanks so much. Now, on with the show. Hey, this is Ian from outside the courthouse, where I just successfully had my first ever traffic citation dismissed. Oh, congratulations. This podcast was recorded at 12.11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, December 9th. Things may have changed when you hear this podcast, but I'll probably still technically have a spotless driving record.

Enjoy the show. Well, congratulations. Stick it to the man. I am so proud of him. That's great. It takes a lot of time. You've got to go in there and contest it. I mean, most people don't bother.

That's commitment. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And today on the show, President Trump has announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers to offset the impact of his

tariff policies. How does this bailout announcement fit into the bigger picture of Trump's economic policies? Well, to start with, you just have a lot of voters who really are feeling economic pain for a variety of reasons right now. This is something that polls, including our own polling at NPR, keeps showing us, that voters are talking about, especially the big A word affordability, as a big problem. Now, this bailout announcement isn't exactly about affordability, but it is about helping a group of people who have been hurt by Trump's tariff policies to at least stay afloat. Danielle, can we just talk about the nuts and bolts? I mean, how does this program work? I mean, really broadly speaking, it's $12 billion that the

Ag Department has set aside as direct payments to farmers. So another farm support program, there are a few of them. Of that $12 billion, $11 billion, so the overwhelming majority of it is for row crop farmers. So that's farmers that grow grains like seed corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton. So not things like, you know, spinach, tomatoes, things you see in the produce aisle. One billion has been set aside for vegetable farmers should they need it. But that 11 billion for row crop farmers, what we know right now is that it's only for farms making up to just over 900,000 per year. That will exclude the very biggest farms, but will include the very biggest farms, but we'll include all the small family farms that we hear about in politics all of the time.

And it will be capped at just over $150,000 per farm. And the amount will be adjusted based on the size of the farm. So depending on the farmer, that may or may not cover their losses based on tariffs and rising input costs this year. So we said this is about tariffs. I mean, tell me more. What is the problem that the administration is trying to address and how have these affected farmers specifically? You know, if you ask the administration, this is not about tariffs. If you ask the administration, this is about ongoing things that the Biden administration put in place.

The Trump administration is continuing to say it's Biden's economy, even 11 months after Trump took office. And they're saying that we're helping farmers for preexisting problems. But of course, this is about tariffs, really. Tariffs have hurt farmers. And they've hurt them in two big ways. One is raising the costs of inputs. So things like fertilizer. Earlier this year, we've heard farmers talk about imported fertilizer being more expensive because tariffs. Also, steel and aluminum goes into a heck of a lot of stuff that farmers use, especially really expensive stuff like tractors and combines. That's something that row crop farmers use a lot of. And those things are hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes. So you can imagine that a tariff would make it thousands of dollars more expensive potentially. We've heard John Deere talking this year about how it has raised a lot of their costs. So it raises the cost of doing business as a farmer. Now besides that, you also have the trade war aspect. And this has been particularly acute with soybeans. So Trump put a whole bunch of tariffs on Chinese goods. China retaliated by saying, you know what, we're going to stop buying U.S. soybeans. And China was by far the biggest buyer of U.S. soybeans. So that hurt American soybean farmers a lot in a really big way. Now, I will add one other thing, which is farming is profoundly cyclical.

So tariffs have hurt farmers, but that does come on top of several years of prices having declined and also higher input costs that had risen or at least been relatively high over that time. So farmers already had some shrinking margins, but tariffs have hurt them even more on top of that. And what's so interesting about this is that this is a self-inflicted wound. This is Donald Trump's core economic policy, something he's believed in for, you know, 50 years, the magic of tariffs. Tariffs is the most beautiful word in the English language, he says. And now he's reversing or at least trying to mitigate the effects of tariffs. He's in effect admitting that tariffs raise prices, whether they're first.

for consumers in the grocery store or farmers out in the field. That's completely the opposite of what he usually says. Tariffs are going to usher in a golden age of American economy, and tariffs are going to bring in trillions of dollars and make America rich. So he's in effect admitting that part of the affordability crisis, which is the number one issue this year, is because of his own policies. And there's one really important thing to add on top of that. If you think about how tariffs work, where is the money coming from?

It is coming in large part from American companies and American consumers. So this is shifting money around, essentially. This is money from Americans' pockets, consumers' pockets, businesses' pockets, going to farmers. That is where this money is coming from. You talk about prices. You talk about margins. I mean, there are a couple of things in play. There's the prices that the farmers pay for the things you were just talking about, Danielle, like fertilizer, like tractors, the input costs.

Then there are the prices they receive for the things they sell. the commodities like soybeans and corn. We know that tariffs, they're saying tariffs have pushed up the cost of doing business. How have they affected the prices that they're receiving in the market for the goods that they sell? Yes, especially for soybeans because when you have China stopping buying American soybeans, then that is a big drop off in demand. So that did really hurt soybean prices. Now, Trump did strike a deal with China in October.

And China said, okay, yes, we will start buying American soybeans again. The big question is, will they live up to that deal that they struck? The U.S. soybean market is so reliant upon China. So the big question is, if and when do they make those purchases? It might be well into next year because also China buys things seasonally. China buys its soybeans from the southern hemisphere, places like Brazil and Argentina, in the next few months because it's the growing season there. Well, Danielle, I have a question about that.

But this is very deja vu all over again, because in the first term, he had a trade war with China, and then he supposedly made a deal where they would buy soybeans. But they never really lived up to that. You know, as Trump might say, China has all the cards here. I mean, they're the biggest market for buying U.S. soybeans. They also have these rare earth minerals that the U.S. really wants. They basically held those up. They had a lot of cards.

They forced Trump to, you know, acknowledge that and make a deal with them so that they would allow rare earths to be exported to the U.S. and other countries. So do you think China will do the same thing it did in the first term and basically slow walk this? Or do you think they'll live up to this deal? You are getting at something so important here is that this is not just about the short to medium term of what China buys in the next six months to a year. That's important. But there's a longer term thing at work here. And it also was something we thought about during Trump's first term, which is if China sours on buying U.S. crops like soybeans, then they can go somewhere else to get them, like Brazil. And that could be a longer term problem, because if

Brazil amps up its crop production, then China might just say, you know what, we're going to keep buying a whole bunch more Brazil soybeans from here and out. Brazil's market share could go up in the long term, which would hurt the U.S. in the long term. So that is another thing to think about here. China has a lot of leverage, in other words. Yeah. They have stuff we need, rare earths, and they also have the markets that we need for soybeans. And they're going to hold up both of them, if necessary. Absolutely. You know, Mara, these states, these districts, really, that are agricultural districts and states, they tend to be places that Trump has a lot of support. From a political standpoint, is this bailout likely to help him? Well, I think it'll help him

around the edges. I think farmers will be grateful. Farmers are one of his core constituents and supporters. But everything in the midterm is going to be about margins. And the Democratic Party has belatedly woken up to the fact that they have a real problem in rural areas and red states and they're pouring a lot of money now into trying to convince Trump voters that they are going to be better on affordability. They're going to be better at bringing prices down than he is. That might help them around the margins. So I do think it'll help him, but I don't think it solves the bigger problem. Prices are going up, and they're not just for the inputs for soybean farmers. They're, as Danielle said, they're what you see in the grocery aisle. And presidents in general have

very few ways to address that problem. And Trump has been all over the place on it. And that's the real problem he needs to address. Overall, prices are too high. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. We'll have more in just a moment. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial.

When you think about the people you love, it's not the big things you miss the most. It's the details. What memories will you? your loved ones cherish when you're gone. At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things, they're everything. They help families create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion. To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from,

whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo. Cheney. We're the godfather of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton. We're some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The New Yorker. So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. This message comes from the NBC News original podcast, Here's the Scoop. Every evening, join NBC News reporters for a deep dive into the day's top stories, from the front page to the zeitgeist in 15 minutes or less. here's the scoop to follow now.

And we're back. We've been talking about the new bailout program for farmers that President Trump announced yesterday. And I want to take a step back. Daniel, this bailout is one of several ways the administration has tried to offset some of the financial pain felt as a result of Trump's tariffs. I'm thinking about a recent rollback of tariffs

on certain foreign-grown food items, for example. What do you make of all of these different announcements the administration has been making. You know, it feels to some degree like whackable. You have Americans, as we said earlier, talking about all sorts of economic pain. And when they say affordability, that means a lot of stuff has gotten more expensive. So, for example, with Trump's tariffs, just a couple weeks ago, the administration came out and said, you know what, we're going to roll back tariffs on certain foreign grown food items.

They talked about coffee and bananas a lot. Things we don't really grow much of in the U.S. So they did that in an effort to lower prices on those things. Now, in addition to things like that, the administration has proposed various other economic fixes. For example, $2,000 checks to everybody, a 50-year mortgage. This doesn't quite relate to tariffs, but he's talked about making contributions to health savings accounts to help people with rising health insurance premium. costs. So the administration, you get the sense that they are really trying to run around and say,

okay, we are going to put out all of these fires. And as Mara said earlier, a president doesn't have a lot of levers to fix inflation. But the thing is, tariffs are self-inflicted. So the administration is trying to do at the very least try to mitigate the effect of tariffs. Of their own policies. Yes. Even while they don't take responsibility for it. The Trump administration also keeps trying to say tariffs really aren't causing problems, and they will make things so much better down the road, we promise. And here's the other problem that Trump has this time, as opposed to his first term. And his first term, the big economic package that he passed, the tax cut package, lowered rates for rich people and some middle class people. The tax cut package he passed this time, the one big beautiful bill, actually did some things that are hurting middle class people.

It cut taxes for rich people, but it also made health care. costs higher. It got rid of all sorts of benefits that middle class and working class people relied on. And so voters in their minds can draw a direct connection between Trump's policies and the pain that they're facing every time they sit down to try to balance their checkbooks. And it makes it a lot harder for President Trump. The other thing is that even though he does blame Biden for everything and especially for high prices, his own Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik, said that when asked, when will Trump own this economy? And he said in the fourth quarter, which started in October. So I think it's just hard. I mean, you know, in the past,

Trump has been able to talk his way out of almost anything. But prices are very stubborn and people have a firm grip on reality. They know what they're paying. And they feel insulted if a president tells them the economy is better than they feel it is. Danielle, you mentioned this whackamol, this sort of rush to put out different fires? I mean, is there any pattern to which fires the administration seems motivated to focus on? Like, why the farm program, for example? Hmm. That's a great question. I mean, I think there's a couple things. One is it's notable just how broad the kinds of programs he's proposing are, right? From money for everybody to a 50-year mortgage to let's try to lower some grocery prices to the farm problems. I, I, I,

I mean, I really do think, if I had to guess what's going on in their minds, it's that they're seeing just how upset voters are at the economy. And we have heard farmers for quite a while now talking about how the tariffs are hurting them. We heard cattle farmers being upset about assistance to Argentina. So I imagine the administration is just trying to respond to those people. On the one hand, Trump has made tariffs central to his agenda and he says that they will yield positive results. but on the other hand, you see programs like this being rolled out. Do these rollbacks of certain tariffs and this new bailout undermine his message that this is working so well? It certainly does, but there's one other factor here. In a weird way, the Supreme Court, if it rules against Trump on tariffs, will be doing the Republican Party a huge benefit if they can get some of these tariffs off the table before the midterms next year. Kind of a good cop, bad cop scenario.

Yeah. Yeah. And the big question then is, should the Supreme Court rule some of Trump's tariffs, a lot of Trump's tariffs, I should say unlawful, the administration has suggested that they would try to use other laws to replace those tariffs to really stand firm and say, no, no, no, we're going to keep tariffs in place because they do so much good. What will be fascinating is to see if the Supreme Court rules against them, does the administration follow through on that? Because we do know that, Trump is stubborn and really, really has talked up tariffs so much, are he and his administration willing to back down, should that ruling happen? Well, Democrats and Republicans both have been talking about affordability quite a bit, particularly since the off-year elections last month in which Democrats seem to do really well with that message. Are we seeing a shift in Trump's approach on this issue? On the one hand, yes, we are seeing policies like these. On the other hand, he does get pretty dismissive of affordability in different interviews. He sounds almost like he thinks, well, it's not a problem, but I'm going to do these policies anyway.

What's notable to me is that especially since November 5th, we've seen him talk about affordability quite a bit. Why? Well, because in November on Election Day, in those off-year elections, Democrats won by talking about how a lot of things are pretty expensive. Just like he won in 2024 by saying a lot of things were pretty expensive. Yeah, exactly. You know, in terms of the shift in Trump's approach, I think it depends on the day. I mean, one day he's saying that affordability is a democratic hoax and prices are coming down. The next day, he's taking these steps to reduce prices that are caused by his own tariffs.

I think he's all over the place on this. And I guess we'll just have to see how these tariffs continue to play out if any of these promised economic benefits show up. And whether or not policies like this bailout for farmers satisfy his base. Yeah. And if the tariffs even stay in place, we're going to see on that, too. All right. We're going to leave it there for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

There's a lot going on right now, mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the past? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.