9.13.25
Farmers across the country have fallen on hard times in the wake of a number of President Donald Trump's policies, despite being one of his most loyal voting groups. Even in states which voted overwhelmingly in Trump's favor in the 2024 Presidential Election, farmers are concerned about their future, and bankruptcy filings have soared this year. Farmers are in desperate need of help and earlier this month in Arkansas, hundreds of them gathered in Brookland to share their concerns with representatives. One farmer, Chris King, said: "Mr. Trump, you looked at me and said, 'I love you.' Mr. Trump, I need to see the fruit of your love." King added: "I have never been as worried as I am now about whether or not my kids and grandkids will be able to carry on." Another, Scott Brown, said: "You are going to lose 25 to 30 percent of the farmers in this country if they don't do something... and it's not just here; it's everywhere." Some farmers in the state have been praying to God for help, others deeming it a "very dire situation." Trump received a huge amount of support in the 2024 election from farming-dependent counties, securing around 78 percent of their votes, and was previously favored by farmers in the 2020 election as well.
When speaking about his tariffs in March, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!" However, instead of "fun" domestic sales, many farmers are struggling to sell their crops inside the U.S. The closure of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had a hand to play in this, being one of the largest buyers of U.S. grown crops as it spent around $2.1 billion a year providing worldwide food aid. Without USAID providing consistent demand, many farmers have been trying to find other buyers to make up costs, without much success. Some farmers also rely heavily on trade with Chinese markets. After China retaliated against Trump's tariffs with a 10 percent tariff of its own on U.S. goods, as of August 27, not a single U.S. soybean cargo had been purchased by China. Per the data, the number of bankruptcies in the first quarter of this year far exceeded that figure in the same time period last year, almost doubling. "Farm Aid is very concerned about the future of farming in the U.S," Fahy said. She said that farmers they have spoken to have said "the conditions they're seeing and the challenges they're facing are eerily similar" to the Farm Crisis in the 1980s, which wiped over 250,000 farms from the American landscape. She added that it "remains to be seen how farmers will weather the current conditions that have been caused by the Trump administration's policies."