President Donald Trump will announce a $12 billion aid package for American farmers on Monday, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
The package will include $11 billion in one-time payments to farmers through a new Department of Agriculture bridge payment program. The remaining funds will then be allocated to other crops not covered by that program.
President Donald Trump, joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, participates in a roundtable discussion with farmers in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 8, 2025 in Washington.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The long-promised aid package aims to provide relief to farmers who have been directly harmed by Trump’s trade policies, including his global tariffs.
News of the aid package announcement was first reported by Bloomberg.
A White House official confirmed that Trump will announce the package at an event with farmers at the White House on Monday afternoon.
Impact of tariffs on farmers
The aid package comes at a time when the trade war between the United States and China has hit soybean producers especially hard. For most of this fall, during a bumper harvest season, China had blocked all soybean purchases from the United States.
China was the largest buyer of US soybeans in 2024, with sales of $12.64 billion. according to the USDA.
During Trump’s high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, the United States and China announced a framework trade agreement that included a deal on soybeans. China agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans in the last two months of this year and 25 million metric tons in 2026, 2027 and 2028, on par with pre-trade war levels.
So far, China has purchased about 2.2 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans since late October, USDA data shows.
A farmer climbs onto a cotton cutter during a harvest on a farm near Corn, Oklahoma, Nov. 19, 2025.
Nick Oxford/Bloomberg via Getty Images
New package comes after controversy over Argentina bailout
The administration’s new actions also come on the heels of Argentina’s $20 billion bailout, a move that many U.S. farmers and lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle criticized.
This fall, when China stopped buying all soybeans from American farmers, it bought soybeans from Argentina instead. So while the United States was providing a financial lifeline to Argentina, a country that directly benefited from the trade war, American farmers said they felt abandoned.
“Farmers VERY upset [about] “Argentina sells soybeans to China right after US bailout. ZERO US soybeans are still being sold to China,” Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote in a social media post in September about the bailout.
Trump, in his first term, also took steps to bail out American farmers. His administration approved two packages in 2018 and 2019 totaling $28 billion for farmers affected by his economic policies.
