President Donald Trump will announce a $12 billion program that will see the Department of Agriculture dole out as much as $12 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out American farmers who have been hit hard by low crop prices and decreased demand for their products as a result of the president’s tariff policies.
A White House official confirmed to The Independent that Trump would unveil the program on Monday during a roundtable event at the White House alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
The bailout will draw as much as $11 billion for one-time payments to farmers under a new program from the Department of Agriculture called Farmer Bridge Assistance, plus another billion allocated to crops that aren’t covered by the first program.
The official also said the program would be open to farmers whose adjusted gross income for the last two tax years was under $900,000, with the payments the farmers will receive to be determined by how many acres of crops they report to the department.
Farmers will have until December 19 to apply, with the payment rates being released by the end of the month.
The administration expects the bailout program to be completed by the end of February 2026 if not before.
News of the program, which was was first reported by Bloomberg, comes as Americans are reeling from higher prices on imports from nearly every American trading partner caused by Trump’s tariff policies, which are currently the subject of a pending Supreme Court case that could result in many of the import taxes he has levied under emergency powers being thrown out.
Farmers have been hit particularly hard by the barrage of tariffs, as U.S. trading partners such as China have clamped down on their purchases of American agricultural products in retaliation for their products being taxed by the United States.
According to the Agriculture Department, China has gradually increased soybean purchases after an October agreement between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping meant to de-escalate some of the Sino-American trade tensions.
The department said China has purchased 2.25 million tons of soybeans since the end of October, roughly a sixth of the 12 million tons Beijing purportedly pledged to purchase.
Trump had floated the idea of using tariff revenue to help the farmers harmed by those same tariffs, but according to the White House the funds for the $12 billion bailout will come from the Farm Service Agency.
He previously gave $28 billion in taxpayer handouts to farmers harmed by tariff policies during his first term.
