Farmers are starting to see just how bad Trump's 'bailout' really is

Trump’s “bailout” for farmers is an epic disaster, as only a small percent of promised funds are reaching the men and women hurt by his trade war.

After jumping headfirst into trade wars with China, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, Trump promised a $12 billion bailout to farmers for the damage he was doing to them.

But according to the New York Times, less than 14 percent of promised funds have been paid out, and farmers are not happy about it.

“This was supposed to make sure farmers were not the victims of this trade policy,” Jim Mulhern, president of the National Milk Producers Federation, told the Times. “I think most agriculture producers feel that the payments have not come close to making up for the damage for the tariffs.”

The Times reports that just $838 million of the $6 billion pot of bailout money has been sent from the Department of Agriculture to farmers. Another $6 billion will be available next month.

The bailout is “too little, too late” for soybean farmers, as the bailout only accounts for less than half the losses they face, says the Times.

“We were all really supportive at the beginning,” soybean and corn farmer Lynn Rohrscheib told the Times. “We figured we didn’t know all the facts and something would happen and this won’t be a long-term thing. Now it looks like this is going to be a several-year thing and people are getting frustrated.”

The frustration and skepticism is nothing new.

Before the midterm elections, some farmers caught wind of a scheme.

“This is an election ploy,” said Michael Slattery, a soybean, corn, wheat and alfalfa farmer in Wisconsin, “And we as farmers are playing the dupes again in this whole process.”

Trump created a mess by rushing into an ill-thought-out trade war, and now his solution is a disaster of “red tape and long waiting periods,” according to the Times.

The trade wars are just another in a long line of policies that hurt families, and his “solutions” are yet again mired in failure and incompetence.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.