Here come the Trump bailouts

Tariffs are wrecking the farm economy and costing consumers billions. Guess who's coming to the rescue.

First come tariffs. Then, bailouts.

As the costs of President Trump’s economic policies mount, it becomes inevitable that he’ll seek remedies for favored constituencies. So now there will be bailouts for farmers, automakers and maybe even voters.

Farmers were victims of Trump’s first trade war in 2018 and 2019, when China slashed imports of American food products, most notably soybeans. The playbook is the same in 2025. Trump has hiked taxes on Chinese imports to the United States, and China has retaliated by essentially boycotting American soybeans and other agricultural goods, turning to Latin American providers and other sources.

Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash

Trump says the point of his trade war is to improve the US trade deficit by reducing imports and boosting exports. In agriculture, that’s backfiring. The US trade deficit in agriculture this year has already hit a record high and is likely to be the largest ever on an annual basis. Farm bankruptcies are rising and this key Trump voting bloc is demanding help.

Trump sent farmers nearly $30 billion in aid during his first term, to compensate for the damage caused by his trade war. There’s now another farm bailout in the works. Trump is contemplating at least $10 billion in new agricultural aid. Congress could appropriate the money, or Trump could direct it from existing programs, as he did during his first term.

Trump is also considering a kind of tariff exemption for automakers based on the amount of manufacturing they do in the United States. This comes as the Trump tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and auto parts have added billions of dollars of cost at General Motors, Ford, and most other automakers that build cars in America.

Trump is even pushing for a new round of stimulus checks meant to use tariff revenue to help Americans pay for the higher costs caused by the very same tariffs. These “Trump checks,” which Congress would have to approve through legislation, would be somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 and help offset the estimated $2,400 in higher costs the typical household is likely to face each year from all the Trump tariffs.

A rational person might ask: Instead of coming up with piecemeal efforts to undo the damage caused by tariffs, why not just get rid of the tariffs that are causing all this trouble? But a rational person would only ask such a thing if unfamiliar with Trump’s modus operandi.

Trump loves tariffs for at least two reasons. One is that they give him remarkable ability to micromanage the economy. Blanket tariffs with countless exemptions basically let Trump decide who pays the tax and who doesn’t. It’s a form of crony capitalism with Trump as Crony-In-Chief.

Trump can reward allies by coming up with ways for them and their companies to avoid the tariffs. He can punish foes by using tariffs to put them at a competitive disadvantage. You do Trump a favor, you get tariff relief. You don’t, you pay. Much of this Trump can do on his own, with no need for Congress or the inconvenient legislative process.

Trump has also discovered that tariffs provide a revenue stream he can use as a kind of political slush fund. The money doesn’t go directly into Trump’s own pocket, thank god, but it does allow him to claim dibs on a federal revenue stream he basically created. Every president would love to send voters checks with his name on them. Trump can point to $20 billion per month in new tariff revenue and say, there’s the money.

Sure, it’s a shell game. If voters sniff out the scam and decide Trump is putting one over on them, it won’t work. Trump, for his part, is betting that voters will cheer the rescuer and not ask too many questions about why they needed him in the first place.