Economists question necessity of farm bailout, say tariffs don’t help

The Trump administration last week announced it would be giving about $12 billion in direct cash assistance to American farmers, similar to how it assisted farmers in 2018 – only, its stated reasons for doing so are different.

At a roundtable, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said Biden-era policies had plunged farmers into “one crisis after another” and the new Farmer Bridge Assistance program was meant to transport them from a tumultuous present to a more prosperous future.

“This bridge is absolutely necessary, based on where we are right now,” Rollins said. “[This is] the bridge that is needed to get from the last administration and what basically happened under the last president… to this new golden age for farmers.”

The first Trump administration also provided American farmers with a bailout of $12 billion in taxpayer dollars, only that time, it said the disbursement was needed as a temporary buffer while the administration worked out better trade deals. The bail...