12/11/25 Is $12 Billion a Bridge to Anywhere?

With great fanfare, president Trump, along with USDA Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins nearby, announced the long-awaited trade aid named the “Farmer Bridge Assistance Program.” It is $12 bln in financial assistance to the Ag sector, $11 bln in subsidies to crop farmers. “Every” crop that farmers grew in 2026 was unprofitable as crop farmers endured a margin squeeze from both high costs and poor prices. The $12 bln was purportedly funded from the revenue stream that tariffs created. It was tariffs that were also the primary reason behind high costs and poor prices so this program completes a “trade loss tariff funded loop”. Tariffs on imported fertilizer increase US farm costs. Tariffs damaged commodity prices as countries that they were levied on, particularly China, responded by both raising tariffs of their own or restricting their purchases of US farm commodities. China stopped buying US cotton, corn, sorghum, soybeans and pork and other commodities, shifting their demand to Brazil which expanded its production of these commodities accordingly. This boosted global production of them adding to supply and the larger supply weighed on prices. The impact on specific commodity markets was uneven. Mexico stepped up in the case of corn to become…