Too many officials in the Trump administration and several farm state Capitol Hill leaders believe that just saying something is true makes it true.
For example, on June 24, the White House said it would ask Congress for another $11 billion in “temporary economic assistance” for farmers in 2026. Senate Ag Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., chimed in to say that he, too, has “been calling for emergency assistance.”
With the barn door now wide open, farm groups quickly joined the chorus for more “temporary economic support” because, as the American Soybean Association explained, “it’s no secret that farm country is struggling.”
No, but it seems to be a secret among GOP ag leaders about why “farm country is struggling” and now needs another $11 billion from taxpayers: the fast-fading effectiveness of today’s farm programs and the make-believe world of Trump tariffs.
But, hey, there’s virtually no accountability in Congress for anyone, Repub or Dem.
For those keeping score at home, however, the requested billions will balloon today’s already promised $44 billion in 2026 federal farm program payments to $55.3 billion, a record for both farmers and any White House.
Spending records for farm programs is, however, not new for this White House. In the final two years of the first Trump term, 2019 and 2020 — the period of his first tariff calamity — federal farm program payments totaled $69 billion, $5 billion more than the combined farm payments of the following, four-year Biden Administration.
To prove his tariff stubbornness hadn’t changed, the President again imposed broad tariffs in 2025 and 2026 and again they made a hash of U.S. export markets, especially to China.
Then, no surprise, farm payments — courtesy of both the Farm Bill and ad hoc additions requested by the White House — again blew the doors off federal farm aid: Combined, farm program spending for 2025 and 2026 will be an estimated $86.6 billion.
That means that the last four years of the Trump Administration’s management of the Department of Agriculture — 2019, 2022, 2025 and 2026 — U.S. taxpayers will have paid out $155.6 billion farm subsidies, or about $39 billion each year, and received virtually nothing in return.
Not stronger, more resilient farms. Not stronger, more resilient export markets. And certainly not stronger, more resilient rural communities.
Current trends in net farm income, the best overall indicator of agriculture’s financial health, also confirm this growing dependency on Uncle Sam.
For example, according to Department of Agriculture data, NFI in the first year of the initial Trump tariffs, 2019, was $82 billion. More than one-fourth of it, or $22.4 billion, came from taxpayers through direct farm program payments.
A similar, but worse story occurred in 2020, the second year of Tariffs 1.0, when NFI rose to $99 billion but nearly half, or $45.6 billion, again came from taxpayers.
Today’s reprise of tariffs under Trump 2.0 brought a reprise of hefty program payments. In 2025, 17% of all NFI was from program payments; in 2026 that number will more than double to 36%. Moreover, there’s no end in sight.
And, yes, it was different during the Biden Administration. In Biden’s first year in office, 2021, NFI hit $146 billion, nearly $50 billion more than the previous year’s $99 billion, and farm payments weighed in at $26 billion. The next year, NFI set a record, $182 billion while Uncle Sam’s tab was only $15.6 billion.
The biggest difference? No market-fouling tariffs. The numbers — the facts — confirm it.
But don’t tell White House or Capitol Hill farm “experts” who seem happy to light your money on fire while watching rural America sink deeper into decline.
(The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. Contact information is posted at farmandfoodfile.com. © 2026 ag comm)
