The U.S. will increase tariffs on China next year if the two can’t resolve a trade dispute. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer says the ten percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods will increase to 26 percent, if there is no resolution by the March deadline.

Politico reports that it’s somewhat unclear what China is expected to do to avoid the higher tariffs, and that the heart of the U.S. complaints against Beijing’s trade practices focus on deeper issues like Chinese technology transfers and intellectual property policies.

China has begun purchasing U.S. soybeans within the last week, a promised action stemming from the G20 Summit meeting. China also announced it would lower tariffs on U.S. auto imports. Lighthizer says the Trump administration is looking for structural changes to increase market access for American companies, protect intellectual property and end forced technology transfers.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the 2018 farm bill this week, rumored to be Thursday. The President hinted over the weekend that he would sign the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, saying “we’ll get the farm bill,” at the White House Congressional Ball. Trump said the bill was in “very, very good shape,” according to the Hagstrom Report.

The House and Senate each passed the farm bill last week and Trump must sign it before December 31, 2018, when commodity title programs start to expire. The 2014 farm bill expired at the end of September, but some programs were allowed to operate beyond expiration. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture needs further action by Congress this week.

Funding for USDA and the Food and Drug Administration expire at the end of this week and federal agencies are preparing for a partial government shutdown as lawmakers and President Trump fight over spending and a border wall.

The latest Farm Journal Pulse Poll is out, and it shows farmers have a negative view of agriculture policy in the U.S.

Of the hundreds of farmers that responded to the poll, 49 percent say current Ag policy is mostly or very unfavorable. While 24 percent of the respondents said they were “neutral” on the question, only nine percent of the hundreds of farmers said the current policy environment was favorable.

The poll came out during movement on a number of issues that are important to American farmers. Those issues include trade, Waters of the U.S., and passage of the 2018 Farm Bill in Congress. The poll was done before the U.S. reached a temporary truce in its trade war with China.

Despite frustrations with Ag Policy, most farmers don’t seem to place a lot of the blame on President Trump. Out of all the responses, 62 percent rated the president and his administration as mostly or very favorable. Only 24 percent had a mostly or very unfavorable opinion of the president and his policies.

A Bloomberg report says China is taking even more steps to lessen its trade tensions with the U.S. China confirms it will remove retaliatory duties on American automobile imports and it’s preparing to restart purchasing American corn.

The Chinese Finance Ministry says the 25 percent tariff on automobiles will disappear on January first. Sources close to the discussions told Bloomberg that China is preparing to purchase at least three million metric tons of corn. The White House will delay tariff increases on Chinese goods that were set for January first.

Bloomberg sources say the corn purchases likely will start as early as next month. The Chinese government is also considering how to handle the 25 percent tariffs on American corn imports that were implemented in July. The moves by China come only two weeks after its president, Xi Jinping, met with U.S. President Trump.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue met with President Donald Trump to talk about a second round of trade-aid payments to farmers. Perdue had said an announcement was coming out on December third but that’s come and gone.

The payment was first delayed as Washington honored the passing of former President George H.W. Bush. Now, the delay boils down to a Chinese soybean purchase and Office of Management and Budget Director Mike Mulvaney.

Politico says the OMB Director is a longtime critic of farm policy. He’s pushing back against the idea of a second round of trade assistance for farmers and ranchers. “OMB and Director Mulvaney, as always, are looking to hold on to money,” Perdue says. “I understand that. I think this is a commitment that the president made and we hope to have it resolved soon.”

The first Chinese soybean purchase from the U.S. in six months has brought about questions on whether there should even be a second round trade aid, which could amount to as much as $6 billion. While the soybean purchase is encouraging, agriculture is still being hit by retaliatory tariffs imposed by China, Canada, and Mexico.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The resumption of soybean sales to China this week is encouraging to American farmers who have seen the value of their crop plummet amid a trade war with the world’s second-largest economy, but producers see it only as a small step and say they need more federal aid.

Private exporters reported sales of 1.13 million metric tons of soybeans to China on Thursday and another 300,000 metric tons on Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. The Thursday report was the ninth-largest daily sale since 1977, according to the agency’s Foreign Agriculture Service, and it comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration reached a three-month truce in its trade war with China during which the two sides will try to work out their differences.

Davie Stephens, a Kentucky farmer who serves as president of the American Soybean Association, said the resumption of sales is “positive news” but that “it is vital that this 90-day process result in lifting the current 25 percent tariff that China continues to impose on U.S. soybean imports.”

“Without removal of this tariff, it is improbable that sales of U.S. soybeans to China can be sustained,” he said.

China had suspended U.S. soybean purchases earlier this year but under the truce agreed to buy more U.S. farm products. The country typically buys between 30 million and 35 million metric tons of U.S. beans in a normal year.

News of the U.S. sale might prompt some farmers to sell some of the soybeans they have stored on their farms, in part because South American crops will be hitting the world market within a couple of months, said Huron, South Dakota, farmer Brandon Wipf, who serves on the American Soybean Association board.

“We have a narrow window out of which to operate,” he said. “I think you’ll see some farmers selling, some holding on for a little better prices.”

No beans are moving yet out of North Dakota, which typically sends most of its annual crop to Pacific Northwest ports from which the beans go overseas to southeast Asia.

“It may take some time to get the shuttle trains in place and get ocean-going vessels stationed at the PNW,” said North Dakota Soybean Growers Association Executive Director Nancy Johnson. The sale announced this week is for delivery after the new year, she said, and it did not significantly boost prices.

January soybean futures in early Friday trading on the Chicago Board of Trade gained 40 cents to about $9.06 a bushel. That’s down from almost $15 a bushel four years ago and nearly $10 a bushel 18 months ago.

Soybean farmers are getting the largest share of a federal program created to compensate producers up to $12 billion for trade-related losses, though this year’s payment of 82 cents a bushel doesn’t match a market price drop of about $2 per bushel since May.

The Trump administration has said another 82 cents might be approved next year if a trade deal isn’t reached. Both the American Soybean Association and the National Farmers Union this week pushed for a second payment while the administration works on a long-term trade solution.

“The farm sector has already lost far more value to this trade war than the (compensation) payments will provide, and damages due to lost markets will persist long into the future,” Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said. “The administration should be doing everything it can to protect the men and women who feed, fuel and clothe this nation.”

North Dakota U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, said Friday that he stressed the importance of the second payment to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

Not getting a second payment could be a “deal-breaker” for some farmers in terms of their support for the Trump administration, according to Wipf.

“They would see that as a broken promise by the administration,” he said. “We’re of course encouraging the administration not to make the miscalculation that this little bit of detente we have with China has suddenly fixed all the problems we have.”