Trump Administration Announces $16 Billion In Aid To Farmers Hurt By China Trade Dispute

The Trump administration will provide $16 billion in aid to keep farmers afloat as they reel from the yearlong trade war between the U.S. and China, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters in a briefing on Thursday.

The bulk of the aid, or about $14.5 billion, is direct aid to farmers, which producers will start to see some time this summer, Perdue said.

“While farmers themselves will tell you they’d rather than trade than aid, without the trade that has been possible, they’re going to need some support,” he said.

Perdue placed the blame for farmers’ economic losses on China, rather than on the Trump administration’s own hard-line trade tactics.

“All of this would have been moot if China would have acted appropriately and fairly”, he said.

While the aid comes from a fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation, a federal entity founded during the Depression devoted to stabilizing farm income and prices, Trump administration officials including Perdue have said China will pay for the aid to the farm sector.

When asked to explain that assertion, Perdue said, “The president feels very strongly that the tariff revenue is going to be used to support this program, which will come back out and replenish the CCC, as it does every year.”