Washington, DC (RI) — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he believes Congress will have to act to provide the full amount of federal payments to farmers that President Trump has promised to make up for trade-related losses.
Grassley says there’s not enough money in the USDA’s budget today to fund the trade disruption payments the Trump Administration has planned.
American farmers got more than 22 billion dollars in payments in 2019, during Trump’s first administration, after China scaled back U.S. commodity purchases. Amid the current trade stand-off between the two countries, China has stopped buying U.S. soybeans. Grassley says fertilizer prices are another shockwave hitting farm income and Grassley has been calling for a rollback of U.S. tariffs on fertilizer imports.
According to the American Farm Bureau, the U.S. imported 97 percent of the potassium fertilizer farmers used in 2024 — and nearly all of it came from Canada. There’s now a 10 percent tariff on potassium fertilizer imports from Canada.
KIWA Staff Photo
