Farmers Not Sure Tariff Bailout or China Deal Will Save Farms

The farmers South Dakota Public Radio talks to don’t sound all that enthused about the latest round of tariff reparations coming from King Don:

Wayne Soren, a producer who farms corn and soybeans and runs a cow calf operation south of Lake Preston… added that he doesn’t expect much from the funds.

“I have not heard what the actual formula’s going to be, but as much as our expenses are, it probably is not going to impact us a lot,” Soren said. “I think the bankers are going to like it because it’ll be another payment we can make to the bank, keep our operations afloat.”

Another producer, Jeff Kippley, agreed.

“A lot of them are banking on this for their bankers to get that next year’s operating loan to help pay back this year’s operating loan,” Kippley said.

Kippley is the Vice President of both the South Dakota Farmer’s Union and the National Farmer’s Union.

…“Realistically, I’m afraid it’s not going to get a lot of guys to breakeven. Hopefully it gets them to a point where they can do it again next year. And that’s a concern, mental health is really popping its head here,” Kippley said. “Hopefully this will at least be that hope to keep people going and to be able to do it again next year.”

[Jackson Dircks, “Some Ag Producers Skeptical of Bridge Payment Impact,” SDPB Radio, 2025.12.11].

These farmers also share my skepticism about King Don’s alleged deal to get China to buy more U.S. crops:

“We’ve seen that price drop all the way back down. We’re back under $10 [per bushel] at our local price again. The rally was there, and now it’s gone. We’re back to a lot of very low prices and a lot of wait-and-see,” Kippley said. “Let’s see if China actually comes through. If you look back 4 years ago, they were going to buy a lot of beans from us, that was the agreement, and they probably only bought 60% of those beans.”

Kippley said that’s fueled skepticism from farmers both locally and around the country. He said none of his beans have left yet.

Wayne Soren is also skeptical of the U.S.-China agreement.

“The thing with China is they may be a communist country, but they know how to work capitalism. They will not buy it at the high price,” Soren said. “When something happens and the market goes down, that’s when they’re going to jump in. They’re going to buy it at the very lowest price they can” [Dircks, 2025.12.11].

Kippley tells SDPB he at least hopes the new tariff bailouts won’t all go to the rich corporate farms they way they did last time. But we’re already repeating history with the farm bailout; the Environmental Working Group says we’re likely to repeat history with the bailout going mostly to the fattest cats:

An analysis of Agriculture Department payment data shows that 6,430 big farm operations each collected $100,000 or more since 2018 in each of the past three bailouts. Of those, a staggering 2,191 operations each took in more than a total of $1 million in government bailout payments from the three bailouts.

But a very different situation played out for the vast majority of farmers who sought bailout payments, including small farms. During the last Trump trade war bailout, nearly 400,000 struggling farmers each received less than $10,000.

…Congress and the administration through the OBBBA increased payment limits for wealthy farms, created loopholes for corporate farms, and allowed more “city slickers” to collect agricultural subsidies.

An EWG analysis of the payment increases guaranteed by the OBBBA shows that fewer than 6,000 farms are likely to receive an increase of more than $5,000 annually. This estimate is based on average increases to payments made to recipients through the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs over the past five years. The beneficiaries of the payment increases are very likely to be the largest and wealthiest farms, which already get the most from the programs [Environmental Working Group, press release, 2025.12.08].

King Don isn’t acting at all like Ronald Reagan when it comes to free trade, but he appears to be doing his best to brew up another farm crisis.