The Senate rejected disaster-relief proposals from both Democrats and Republicans on Monday. Politico says the legislation’s fate is now uncertain after the House passed a $14.2 billion aid package in January. Communities hit hard by disasters have waited months for Congress to approve additional federal aid.

States from the Southeast all the way to California have been battered by hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and now floods in the Midwest and Plains states. The $13.5 billion Senate aid package included $3 billion for farm disaster aid, as well as $150 million to rebuild rural facilities. Republicans criticized Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate, many of whom recently campaigned in Iowa, for voting against the GOP plan. It included assistance for Midwestern states recovering from catastrophic flooding last month.

Democrats blame Republicans because the GOP took out aid money for Puerto Rico that was included in the House plan. Lawmakers planned to introduce new legislation as early as Tuesday that would provide billions of dollars in new disaster funds for farm-belt states that were hit by the recent flooding.

President Trump wrote a series of Tweets on Friday that caught agriculture’s attention. The Hill Dot Com says he threatened to close the southern border unless Mexico took steps to stop the illegal border crossings. The tweets come as the administration continues to warn of a crisis at the border.

Trump blames both Democrats and Mexico for the problem, even accusing Mexico of making “a fortune” from the U.S. that is greater than the cost of protecting the border. In the meantime, both the business and ag communities are pushing back against the threat. The president hasn’t said yet how it would actually work, but business groups are preparing for the worst. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the threat alone “creates a degree of economic uncertainty that could potentially wipe out the administration’s other economic policies.” Dairy producers point out that Mexico remains the largest export market for U.S. milk products.

Mexico accounted for $1.4 billion in dairy exports last year. Dairy Export Council President Tom Vilsack says, “Closing the southern U.S. border to Mexico would be a gut punch that could set the industry back by a decade or two.” The move would also hurt American consumers at the grocery store because nearly half of the U.S. vegetable imports and 40 percent of fruit imports come from Mexico.

The Major League Baseball season is underway, and the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says fans will chow down on more than 18 million hot dogs in ballparks this year. A survey by the organization found fans are expected to consume 18.3 million hot dogs throughout the season in U.S. ballparks.

The Los Angeles Dodgers home, Dodger Stadium, tops the list with projected sales of 2.7 million hot dogs. Cubs fans are Wrigley Field in Chicago are the runner up, with projected sales of 1.2 million hot dogs. Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ rivals up the coast, San Francisco Giants fans are expected to purchase 450,000 sausages, with Cubs fans not far behind at 400,000.

As in past years, the Brewers’ Miller Park is the sole MLB venue where sausage sales will outpace hot dogs. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council was established in 1994 by the American Meat Institute and celebrates hot dogs and sausages as iconic American foods.

The National Pork Producers Council is urging the Trump administration to “expeditiously complete and deliver” a trade deal with Japan. The announcement follows reports that China and the U.S. will begin trade negotiations on April 15, 2019. NPPC President David Herring in a statement says the U.S. needs a level playing field in Japan, adding “U.S. pork producers are losing market share in Japan to international competitors that have recently negotiated more favorable trade terms.”

Six countries including, Canada, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam, have implemented the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement of Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP replacement, and gained more favorable access to Japan.

Dermot Hayes, an economist at Iowa State University, says U.S. pork will see exports to Japan grow from $1.6 billion in 2018 to more than $2.2 billion over the next 15 years if the United States quickly gains access on par with international competitors. Hayes reports that U.S. pork shipments to Japan will drop to $349 million if a trade deal on these terms is not quickly reached with Japan.

More than one million acres of farmland are reported to be damaged from historic flooding so far this year. Satellite data analyzed for Reuters shows the “bomb cyclone” weather event left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water. Farms from the Dakotas to Missouri and beyond have been under water with weekend rains adding more concern.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned this spring could be an “unprecedented flood season” as it forecasts heavy spring rains, and cites flooding conditions already seen along major river basins. The report shows that nearly 1.1 million acres of cropland and more than 84,000 acres of pastureland in the Midwest was covered with floodwaters for at least seven days between March 8 and March 21.

Still, the flooded areas represent less than one percent of U.S. land to grow corn, soybeans and other crops. Iowa, the top U.S. corn and second soy producing state, had the most water, covering 474,200 acres, followed by Missouri with 203,100 acres, according to Gro Intelligence, the agency that compiled the report.

The Environmental Protection Agency held a hearing last week on the proposed Modifications to Fuel Regulations, which are intended to provide flexibility for E15 and to Elements of the Renewable Identification Number Compliance System. Members of the National Biodiesel Board testified during the hearing and asked the EPA to not adopt the proposed changes to the RIN system as it finalizes the E15 rule.

NBB’s Vice President of Federal Affairs Kurt Kovarik said at the public hearing that EPA must change its practice of encouraging retroactive small refinery exemption petitions. “We ask the agency to use this opportunity to instead address the timing of small refinery exemption petitions,” he said during testimony. “If EPA finds that it can easily propose a quarterly compliance deadline in the RIN proposed rule, the agency should feel just as comfortable applying a similar reasonable administrative requirement that small refineries submit petitions before the end of the compliance year.”

NBB Chair Kent Englebrecht says they appreciate EPA taking claims of RIN market manipulation seriously. However, because the agency has yet to see evidence of such behavior, he says they’d like EPA to not finalize the RIN reform portion of the proposed rule.

Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, put a damper on the prospect of the U.S. and China wrapping up trade talks in the next few weeks. Politico says Kudlow is normally upbeat, but he threw out a bunch of caution last week by saying it may take a few months yet for President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet and finalize an agreement to end the trade war.

“We’ll get there when we get there, and it will be a historic moment,” Kudlow said during the keynote speech at the Export-Import Bank’s annual conference. “If it takes a few more weeks or a few more months, so be it.” Negotiations were still ongoing as of late last week as both U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were in Beijing.

A Chinese delegation will visit Washington, D.C., this week in order to continue talks and will likely meet with President Trump. However, Politico says any permanent end to the trade war between the world’s two largest economies will have to come during a face-to-face meeting between the two presidents.

A DTN summary of the USDA Quarterly Grain Stocks and Prospective Plantings Report shows that corn is once again the acreage leader this year. Farmers are expected to plant 92.8 million acres of corn this spring. That’s a four percent rise over 2018. Soybean acreage is projected at 84.6 million acres, down five percent from last year.

Wheat planting may set the wrong kind of record this year. The all-wheat acres are forecast at 45.8 million, down four percent from 2018. If it does hold true, that would be the lowest all-wheat acreage on record since 1919, the first year that USDA began keeping track. DTN notes that the survey likely took place before flooding hit the Midwest states, so the numbers will likely be much different in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri.

USDA says corn ending stocks were at 8.6 billion bushels, within the range of expectations and three percent lower than last year. Soybean stocks took a huge jump from last year, rising 29 percent to 2.7 billion bushels. The all-wheat ending stocks were also higher compared to last year, up six percent to nearly 1.6 billion bushels.