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Kendall, N.Y. (WHAM) — President Donald Trump has announced a $12 billion dollar farm aid package for America’s agricultural sector to help provide stability for those hit hard with rising costs.
The move came after Trump raised tariffs on China as part of a larger trade war.
Ethan Wade, chief development officer at Brighton Securities, said agriculture is the backbone of America and her economy.
“When it does well, we see it trickle into trucking, we see it trickle into manufacturing, we see it trickle into retail,” he said.
With the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, Wade said China is leveraging America’s crops to gain an upper hand and taking their buying power elsewhere.
“If our farmers no longer have access to the rest of the world to sell their crops, the demand falls, so too do the prices,” Wade said.
“When you impact our agricultural industry, it’s one of the easiest ways for those other countries to retaliate against us,” he added.
Wade called the push for the aid package “a bridge to help the farmers who have been impacted the most, in hopes that they can avoid those permanent closures or having to sell off some of their land.”
Matt Kludt, co-owner of Kludt Bros. Farms in Kendall, feels the upcoming aid package from the Trump administration is more of a stimulus than a bailout.
“I think he’s trying to give back to the heart of America,” he said.
Kludt, whose farm is split evenly between vegetables and grain, said he’s actually had a good season — with a soybean crop of about 1,200 acres.
“I like to be thankful for the harvest that we had,” he said.
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Kludt is skeptical of some of the national noise on the negative tariff impact.
“If you really look at the numbers, I can’t see where it’s affecting the price all that much,” he said.
When it comes to China using crops like soybeans for leverage, the impact isn’t big, at least for Kludt. Other farmers across the nation are hurting, though, and he said it’s been going on for some time. Kludt said China has actually been turning to South American farms for the last decade.
“South America had just a bumper crop, and their beans are cheaper, and China has infrastructure set up there, so it’s easier for them to go there — and they’ve been positioning themselves that way in the last five to 10 years,” Kludt said. “They’re trying to do away with us, trying to get some leverage on us, and this is all they’ve got.”
Wade said tariffs aren’t a good policy, or a bad one. Much remains to be seen, particularly next year. When any White House makes sweeping changes, Wade said there will be cracks along the way.
“There is always going to be — whether it’s one or multiple — unintended consequences that come as a result,” he said. “I think we’re seeing that with the agricultural industry from the tariffs that have been put in place.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said checks should begin making their way in the mail by the end of February. It’s unclear how much money each farm will get, but Kludt said it might be something like $100 per acre.
“It’s not something that (a farmer will) buy a new Mercedes with,” he said. “But anything is appreciated.”