Republicans Pan Trump’s $12 Billion Farm Aid Plan
- GOP lawmakers’ responses range from ambivalent to outraged
- Crop prices rise in anticipation of agricultural aid program
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The Trump administration’s decision to deliver $12 billion in aid to farmers hit by a burgeoning trade war was panned Tuesday by Republicans in Congress as not fixing the underlying problem -- the White House’s own trade policies.
The planned mix of direct payments to farmers, commodity purchases for food-aid programs, and stepped up promotion of new export markets buoyed markets looking for new sources of demand for U.S. products. The announcement raised futures of soybeans, a crop heavily dependent on trade with China, to their highest price in two weeks, but it didn’t win over skeptics on Capitol Hill, including Republicans from politically important agricultural states.