Trump announces $12 billion farmer aid package

By CNN

Published December 8, 2025 1:00 PM

CNN

By Kit Maher, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Monday announced a $12 billion farm aid package.

Most of the aid — $11 billion — will be directed toward crop farmers through one-time payments under the Farmer Bridge Assistance program, a White House official told CNN ahead of the announcement. The rest will go to farmers whose crops fall outside the umbrella of the assistance program.

“This money would not be possible without tariffs,” Trump said at a roundtable at the White House, while both Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted the president’s commitment to farmers.

Rollins said the money would be flowing by February 28, 2026, and explained that $1 billion of the funding is being held back to make sure all specialty crops are covered.

The farm aid announcement details were first reported by Bloomberg, but Rollins hinted at the bridge payments at a Cabinet meeting last week.

At last week’s Cabinet meeting, Rollins suggested that it was not the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs, but rather Biden administration policies, that have caused farmers to need assistance. She credited Trump for opening the markets through trade deals without directly acknowledging how tariffs have impacted farmers.

“What you’ve been able to do is open those markets up and again, move toward an era where our farmers are not so reliant on government checks, but have the markets to sell their product. Having said that, we do have a bridge payment we’ll be announcing with you next week, as we’re still trying to recover from the Biden years,” Rollins said.

“For so long, our farmers, many of them, have been farming for government checks instead of moving their product around the world. These trade deals change that forever,” Rollins said.

Some farmers have previously balked at the idea of aid. Mark Read, District 5 director for the Illinois Soybean Association, previously told CNN, “Farmers don’t want free aid. We want free trade.” This was before China agreed to again purchase soybeans from US farmers after turning to Brazil and Argentina amid a trade war.

In late September, Rollins said the farm economy, and especially row croppers, was facing “a significant challenge right now,” calling the impact of Trump’s tariffs a “time of uncertainty.”

“The president’s commitment of a ‘golden age’ for rural America, for our American farmers and workers, is just around the corner, but he has been very clear … that there could be a time of uncertainty, especially for our farmers and ranchers, and it’s clear we’re in that time of uncertainty now,” Rollins said at the time.

This story and headline have been updated with Monday’s announcement.