U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Money Moves

Designs and administers farm aid and trade mitigation programs

Since 2018, U.S. farmers have been repeatedly caught in the crossfire of Trump-era tariff battles, first in the original U.S.–China trade war and now again under a renewed wave of tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico and others. To blunt the damage from lost export markets and depressed crop prices, successive Trump administrations have turned to large, executive‑driven farm aid programs funded through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation, starting with a 12 billion dollar package in 2018 and a 16 billion dollar package in 2019.

Updated Dec 11, 2025