Category World News

US President Donald Trump has announced a $12bn aid package for farmers, offering financial assistance to a core part of his political base that has been hit hard by falling crop prices and the impact of his trade policies.

Unveiling the plan at the White House in Washington, DC alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and several farmers on Monday, Trump said: “Maximising domestic farm production is a big part of how we will make America affordable again and bring down grocery prices.”

Rollins said the Farmer Bridge Assistance programme’s initial phase would provide $11bn for row crop farmers – those who cultivate crops such as corn, soya beans and cotton in rows. An additional $1bn has been earmarked for farmers who grow some speciality crops not covered by this. The aid money is expected to be made available by the end of February.

The package is Trump’s latest effort to defend his economic record and respond to public anxiety about rising food costs. It also comes after China curbed its purchases of US soya beans in retaliation for steep US trade tariffs, which have also caused the cost of fertiliser and other agricultural products to soar.

How will this aid be distributed to farmers?

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will calculate per-acre payments for different crops using a formula that estimates production costs. Payments will be capped at $155,000 per farm or individual, and only farms earning less than $900,000 annually will qualify.

The USDA’s formula is designed to bolster small-scale producers who may be struggling more than others. “We looked at how they were hurt, to what extent they were hurt,” Trump said.

Farmers will begin receiving funds on February 28, according to Rollins. Meanwhile, applications for funds will open in the coming weeks so that farmers “will know exactly what that number looks like”.

Trump said the money for the scheme will come from tariff revenues.

Though Trump has, at times, downplayed cost-of-living issues, he visited Pennsylvania on Tuesday to explain to voters how his administration is addressing this concern.

At the same time, he defended his record on trade and the sweeping reciprocal tariffs he has imposed on countries around the world this year. “It’s amazing,” Trump said of tariffs at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. “It’s the smart people who understand it. Other people are starting to learn, but the smart people really understand it.”

Why is this aid package being introduced now?

Many farmers continue to support Trump. The country’s most farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly backed him in last year’s presidential election by an average of 77.7 percent, according to the USDA.

Experts say his anti-establishment rhetoric has resonated with rural communities that feel overlooked by political elites in Washington, DC. His promises of deregulation also appealed to many farmers who feel frustrated by federal rules they view as burdensome.

But the president’s trade agenda and the imposition of trade tariffs to address the country’s trading deficit with many other countries have hit farmers hard. Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement earlier this year provoked steep retaliatory duties on US products, particularly from China, including on US agricultural exports.

Trump’s latest package is an echo of a $12bn programme he offered to farmers in 2018 during his first-term administration’s initial trade dispute with China.

Which crops have been hardest hit by trade tariffs?

Soya bean farmers have been badly bruised by the US-China trade spat this year. Trump was the principal architect of recent tensions – his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, launched earlier this year, targeted China more than any other country.

Historically, more than half of all soya beans produced in the US – mainly in the Midwest – have been sold to China. But after Trump imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing raised duties on US soya beans to 34 percent.

Last year, China bought slightly more than 50 percent (27 million metric tons) of the $24.5bn of produce that US soya bean farmers sold to international markets. This year, US exports to China have so far fallen by more than half.

Instead, China has begun buying more soya beans from Brazil and other South American nations.

The American Soybean Association has also warned that tariffs are driving up costs for soya bean producers. In particular, US tariffs on Moroccan fertiliser, which have been hiked from 2.1 percent to 16.8 percent, have squeezed farmers.

In October, following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, Trump said Beijing had committed to buying 12 million metric tons of US soya beans by the end of this year, and 25 million metric tons annually for the next three years.

Trump is also facing pressure to address rising beef prices. On November 7, he asked the Department of Justice to investigate foreign-owned meatpackers in the US, which he claims are driving up costs, though he has provided no supporting evidence for this.

Then, on November 20, Trump announced he would peel back trade tariffs of up to 50 percent on certain Brazilian agricultural products, including coffee and beef. The reversal was broadly interpreted as an acknowledgement that the tariffs were fuelling inflationary pressures at home.

More broadly, US consumer sentiment remains near record lows. In November, data released by the University of Michigan showed that Americans view their personal finances as the weakest they’ve been since 2009. High inflation is the primary cause of concern.

Prices of other food staples have also risen recently. Compared to last year’s Thanksgiving Day, potatoes this year on the November US holiday were up by 3.7 percent, bread rolls 3.9 percent and apples 5.3 percent – all outpacing the 3 percent annual inflation rate, government data shows.

Will Trump’s bailout package be enough to rescue farmers?

While farmers have generally welcomed Trump’s bailout package, many view it as a temporary reprieve rather than a solution to long-term challenges like rising costs and the decline of small-scale farming.

“[It’s] a start, but I think we need to be looking for some avenues to find other funding opportunities, and we need to get our markets going. That’s where we want to be able to make a living from,” Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland told the Associated Press on Monday.

Family farmers and those renting land have been particularly exposed to Trump’s trade war. Many smaller farms, already operating on thin margins, have struggled to absorb the shock of higher input costs.

As strains persist, analysts have warned that the sector may undergo further consolidation, with large industrial farms expanding their reach while smaller growers disappear or take on more debt just to stay afloat.

Earlier this year, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, estimated that in the first half of this year, the number of farm bankruptcies was 60 percent higher than a year before. In addition, farm sector debt is expected to rise by 5 percent to nearly $600bn in 2025.

Libby Schneider, deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee, said Trump’s aid package does not go far enough: “Farmers don’t want handouts – they want their markets back,” she said in a statement.

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Kyiv, Ukraine – United States President Donald Trump bristled at a question about his Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday during an interview with media outlet Politico. Admonishing Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to hold a presidential election, he accused him of not ending the war with Russia as an excuse to cling to power.

“They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy any more,” Trump told Politico, referring to the presidency of Zelenskyy who was elected in April 2019 with more than 70 percent of the vote, but whose five-year term would, under normal circumstances, have expired in 2024.

There is a reason he’s still there, though. The Ukrainian constitution bans wartime elections, and Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion will enter its fifth year in February 2026.

Hours after Trump’s remarks, Zelenskyy responded, saying he was “ready” to hold an election – as long as Washington and, perhaps, Brussels could ensure its security.

“I’m asking – and now declaring it openly – the United States to help me, maybe along with European colleagues, to provide security for holding the vote,” Zelenskyy said. “I have the will and readiness for that.”

So why is Trump raising this issue now, and would it even be possible to hold an election during a war?

Is Trump repeating Russian talking points?

Trump is indeed “playing along” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.

Putin and his ministers have long called Zelenskyy “illegitimate” and dubbed his government a “neo-Nazi junta” that allegedly pits average Ukrainians against the “brotherly” Russian nation.

Last month, Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine with short and vague clauses which offer few security guarantees for Kyiv and are widely seen as a Moscow wish list. Crucially, the plan would involve Ukraine ceding land already lost to Russia during the war, a line that Zelenskyy has repeatedly said he will not cross.

“Trump doesn’t care what’s going to happen to Ukraine and Ukrainians, what’s more important to him is that the war is settled somehow, and he can show his leadership and response to Ukraine and to Europeans,” Romanenko said.

Civilian observers agree.

“The Kremlin offered an ultimatum via Trump, and Ukraine refused,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.

And now, observers say, Trump is seeking to settle Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II before his upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Otherwise Trump will have to consult Xi, and that contradicts his conception of America First and Make America Great Again,” Tyshkevych said.

That’s why the upcoming two months will be “very complicated” for Ukraine as Washington is likely to frantically push for a peace deal, he said.

What are the hurdles an election would face?

Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Trump’s suggestion of him clinging to the presidency were “frankly, completely unreasonable”. He added that he would ask his Public Servant party, which dominates the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, to draft a law to allow voting during martial law.

However, practically, it could be extremely difficult to hold an election in Ukraine now.

In February, Zelenskyy and his officials also responded to Trump’s demands that they hold a presidential vote. They insisted it couldn’t be held while Moscow pummelled Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles and occupied almost one-fifth of Ukraine.

Ukrainian nationals in occupied areas are subject to abduction, torture and even death for taking an anti-Russian stance and, therefore, could not possibly take part in any vote.

An election would likely be a logistical nightmare as millions of Ukrainians have been displaced or fled to Europe or other nations where embassies and consulates would not be able to handle the volume of voters.

The hours-long blackouts all over Ukraine, which follow Moscow’s pinpointed, repeated strikes on Ukrainian power generation and transmission infrastructure, would make an election even more difficult to hold.

Who would ensure voters’ safety?

Only Washington’s full commitment to interfere militarily if Russia were to violate a ceasefire could guarantee security, analyst Tyshkevych said.

But that’s a step that Washington has not taken and is not likely to take now, he added. “I barely imagine security guarantees that will ensure the security of the election without ending the war.”

How soon could an election be held?

Even if Kyiv begins preparations for a vote, it likely could not be held much earlier than March 2026.

The Verkhovna Rada will take several weeks to draft, submit and vote in a law allowing the election. Election authorities would then take several more weeks to approve all candidates and allow them to campaign. All earlier timelines are “fantasy,” Tyshkevych said.

Would soldiers be able to vote?

Kyiv did hold presidential and parliamentary elections after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and backed a separatist uprising in the southeastern Donbas region.

But the hostilities were limited to Donbas and were labelled “an anti-terrorism operation” that did not require martial law to be imposed on Ukraine.

Servicemen were able vote – but most did not insist on participating, Lieutenant General Romanenko said.

This time, securing the vote of hundreds of thousands of servicemen would be near-impossible without a stable, months-long ceasefire, he added.

A truce would have to guarantee every serviceman’s chance to cast a ballot – or risk triggering an uproar among them. “They will demand full participation,” Romanenko said.

What do Ukrainians say about holding an election?

Most Ukrainians are opposed to holding an election without a stable peace settlement in place.

In September, 63 percent of those surveyed opposed holding a vote even immediately after a ceasefire, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Only 22 percent believed elections could be held in the wake of a ceasefire with security guarantees, the poll said.

“Now is not the time,” Mykola Chernenko, a 29-year-old sales manager at an electronics store in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. “We have to focus on ending the war, and will sort all the politics out later,” he said.

Would Zelenskyy be re-elected?

Zelenskyy’s approval ratings soared above 80 percent in the immediate aftermath of the full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022.

However, his popularity has diminished since. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a burly, taciturn top commander and four-star general whom Zelenskyy fired in early 2024 is Ukraine’s most popular politician these days.

Some 73 percent of Ukrainians polled in July said they trust Zaluzhny, according to the Rating Sociological Group, a Kyiv pollster.

Zaluzhny, who now serves as ambassador to the United Kingdom, has largely refrained from making any public remarks on the matter.

The same poll found that Zelenskyy is trusted by 65 percent of Ukrainians, while 29 percent said they “distrust” him.

A scandal, which unfolded last month over the alleged involvement of Zelenskyy’s close allies in a corruption scheme linked to nuclear power generation, is likely to dampen his popularity further in the energy-starved nation.

Are elections allowed in other countries during war?

Two years after the full-scale invasion, Russia held a presidential election – even though hostilities were raging in four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions, which Moscow declared part of its territory in September 2022.

Many Ukrainians in occupied areas were forced to cast their ballots under duress, and Putin predictably won with 88 percent of the vote.

But Moscow never openly declared martial law and stubbornly dubs its invasion of Ukraine “a special military operation”. Anyone who calls it a “war” faces fines, arrest or Kremlin-orchestrated trials.

Other ex-Soviet nations have held presidential elections during ongoing, yet frozen, armed conflicts – notably, Armenia and Azerbaijan, whose conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988 and ended in 2023.

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