The Trump administration is planning to roll out the first tranche of bailout payments for farmers in the coming weeks, likely using billions of dollars in funding from an internal USDA account, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
But it won’t be enough: USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation fund — which President Donald Trump previously tapped to provide $28 billion in farm aid during his first-term trade war with China — has just $4 billion left in the account. Trump officials, including those at the Treasury Department, are looking at how to tap tariff receipts or other funding to supplement the payments without triggering a messy fight in Congress.
The timing of the actual aid rollout is also tricky given that it’s unlikely to happen or even be possible during the ongoing government shutdown that’s shuttered vast swaths of the Agriculture Department.
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