Thursday’s disaster aid package rollout was good news for agriculture but many of the details are still uncertain. The total aid amount could come in at $16 billion and will cover a wider range of crops than last year’s aid to farmers. However, the administration didn’t disclose some key details like just how much money individual farmers and ranchers will get in cash.

Politico says $14.5 billion is being earmarked for direct payments to producers. USDA developed a new and more complex formula for calculating producers’ compensation to remove incentives for planting certain crops. Instead of being tied to what farmers actually grew in 2019, they’ll be computed on a county-by-county basis. Officials say they’ve estimated the amount of damage inflicted on producers by trade disputes and will then multiply that by the acreage planted in the area. Farmers who don’t plant a crop this year won’t be eligible for cash assistance.

This will likely complicate things for Midwest producers who’ve been battling rain this spring while trying to plant. The USDA’s trade aid package could encourage them to try to plant anyway. The president says the aid would be paid for by the tariffs that China is paying into the U.S. Treasury. That’s not the case. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says the USDA will tap into the Commodity Credit Corporation, which has broad authority to stabilize the farm economy.

Representatives Collin C. Peterson and Dusty Johnson and the co-chairs of the Congressional Biofuels Caucus introduced the Renewable Fuel Standard Integrity Act of 2019 which establishes an annual June 1st deadline for refineries to submit small refinery exemption petitions from their RFS blending obligations each year and increases transparency in the process.

“It is clear to me that EPA is abusing its authority by recklessly handing out small refinery waivers and refusing to account for them,” said Peterson. “This is hurting farmers and agriculture communities at the worst time. This bill ends the gamesmanship in the waiver process and increases transparency along the way.”

Since 2018, EPA granted 54 waivers to refineries for the 2016 and 2017 RFS compliance years totaling 2.61 billion ethanol-equivalent gallons being taken out of the market place. By law, the RFS requires that the EPA make adjustments when determining future biofuels targets to account for waivers to ensure that the overall biofuels targets are not reduced by waivers.

By setting a June 1st petition submission deadline each year, the EPA will have time to account for renewable fuel gallons stripped from the market due to these waivers. The bill also increases transparency in the process by making information with respect to a petition subject to public disclosure.

The Trump administration announced a new trade relief package in response to the U.S. trade dispute with China. USDA’s trade retaliation relief program includes direct payments to qualifying producers. The National Pork Producers Council says the program will include pork surplus purchases for the benefit of low-income families and others in need. They’re also happy it will include additional funding to develop new export opportunities.

The American Soybean Association says it welcomes news of the aid package. “We recognize that these funds will help offset the persisting damage from tariffs, as well as enable new market development,” says ASA President Davie Stephens. However, Stephens emphasized that the soybean industry needs more access to trade. The National Farmers Union is appreciative of the aid package and supports efforts to address China’s unfair practices.

“While the trade aid package is an improvement over last year’s Market Facilitation Program, by definition it fails to provide predictable, consistent, and adequate relief across American agriculture,” says NFU President Roger Johnson. House Ag Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee Chair Jim Costa of California called the package a “rushed and poorly-planned bailout.” Costa says producers of every commodity have been asking for more access to foreign markets, not aid funds.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is delivering another $16 billion in aid to farmers hurt by his trade policies, an effort to relieve economic pain among his supporters in rural America and another sign that the U.S.-China trade war likely won’t end anytime soon.

Watch LIVE: President Trump Delivers Remarks on Supporting America’s Farmers and Ranchers https://t.co/CVtQkZ9TwK

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 23, 2019

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the first of three payments is likely to be made in July or August. He suggested it was unlikely a trade deal would be done by then, a sign that U.S. negotiators could be months away from settling a bitter trade dispute with China.

“The package we’re announcing today ensures that farmers do not bear the brunt of unfair retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other trading partners,” Perdue said.

The latest bailout comes atop $11 billion in aid Trump provided farmers last year.

Trump, seeking to reduce America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world and with China in particular, has imposed import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum, solar panels and dishwashers and on thousands of Chinese products.

U.S trading partners have lashed back with retaliatory tariffs of their own, focusing on U.S. agricultural products in a direct shot at the American heartland, where support for Trump runs high.

Farm country is hurting, I’m glad to see @realdonaldtrump & @SecretarySonny respond to Cheating China’s shady tactics that consistently undermine direct negotiations. Our farmers need a deal, but this $16B package will hopefully give some relief during the ongoing trade war.

— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) May 23, 2019

William Reinsch, a trade analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S. trade official, called the administration’s aid package for farmers “a fairly overt political ploy.”

“It’s not economics,” Reinsch said. Trump wants win the farm states again in the 2020 election, “and he’s got members of Congress beating up on him” to resolve the trade conflicts.

Financial markets buckled Thursday on heightened tensions between the U.S. and China. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 400 points in afternoon-day trading.

U.S. crude plunged 6% on fears that the trade standoff could knock the global economy out of kilter and kill demand for energy.

Talks between the world’s two biggest economies broke off earlier this month with no resolution to a dispute over Beijing’s aggressive efforts to challenge American technological dominance. The U.S. charges that China is stealing technology, unfairly subsidizing its own companies and forcing U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets if they want access to the Chinese market.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss the standoff at a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka, Japan, next month. There are no current plans for talks to occur before then.

Briefing reporters on the farm aid package, Perdue said he doubted that “a trade deal could be consummated before” the first payments to farmers in July or August.

The second payment will be made around November and the third likely in early 2020, USDA officials said, unless a trade deal has been reached by then.

The direct payments will make up $14.5 billion of the $16 billion package and will be handed out on a county-by-county basis. The amounts will be determined by how much each county has suffered from the retaliatory duties imposed by China, as well as previous tariffs put in place by the European Union and Turkey.

The rest of the package includes $1.4 billion to purchase surplus food commodities from farmers and distribute them to U.S. schools and food banks, and $100 million to help develop new export markets overseas.

The payments will go to farmers producing roughly two dozen crops, including soybeans, corn, canola, peanuts, cotton and wheat. Dairy and hog farmers are also eligible.

U.S. soybean exports to China have been hit particularly hard, falling from $12.3 billion in 2017 to just $3.2 billion last year.

The aid offsets some of the losses. But farmers are worried about the future and whether they can win back lost sales in China, a market they’ve spent years breaking into. “I don’t think any kind of bailout package, even if it was permanent, would substitute for the loss markets,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council and a former U.S. trade official.

Trump has said that China is footing the bill for the farm bailout by paying the tariffs. But tariffs are taxes paid by U.S. importers, and studies have shown that American consumers and businesses usually end up absorbing the higher costs.

Perdue acknowledged that the tariffs, regardless of who pays them, are sent to the Treasury Department and not earmarked for the relief program. But he said that China is “indirectly” paying for the aid.

“The president feels that China is paying for this program through the tariffs,” Perdue said.

Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports and is planning to hit another $300 billion worth, a move that would extend import taxes to just about everything China ships to the United States.

Among those bracing for higher costs if the new tariffs kick in is Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun!, a Boca Raton, Florida, toy company that imports from China.

“The thought of the government taking my money and giving it to farmers as subsidies to support their loses doesn’t sit well,” Foreman said by email. “It’s not fair to take money from a Florida company to support an Iowa farmer! Farmers don’t want welfare. I’m sure they, like us, just want open free markets to trade in!”
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NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is providing another $16 billion in aid to U.S. farmers hurt by his trade policies.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that Trump has “authorized the $16 billion facilitation program.” Last year, the Trump administration delivered farmers an $11 billion bailout to offset the costs of his trade conflicts with China and other U.S. trading partners.

Trump has imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum and thousands of Chinese products. Foreign countries have lashed back with retaliatory tariffs. They have focused on U.S. agricultural exports in a direct shot at Trump’s supporters in rural America.

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U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had kind words for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after they met this week to discuss the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement. Lighthizer attended a closed-door lunch with Republican Senators earlier this week, saying he was optimistic about the prospects of getting the USMCA passed.

Lighthizer says the House Speaker is focusing on the deal. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst told Politico that Rep. Lighthizer was “very complimentary of Speaker Pelosi, I’ll be honest.” Senate GOP members seemed more optimistic about the future of the deal, which Politico says was on “life-support” just weeks ago.

One sign that Pelosi is working in good faith on the deal is the formation of four working groups to address Democratic concerns. Those concerns included improvements in the areas of labor, environment, and medicines. The fourth group will work on miscellaneous issues that Democrats want to get resolved. There’s no timeline yet as to when the administration will formally submit the text of the agreement to Congress.