Trump is floating the idea of ordering another bailout for American farmers harmed by his global trade war, but the Department of Agriculture still hasn't paid out the full amount of Trump's first bailout.
Trump's first bailout for farmers was suppose to total $12 billion but, nearly nine months after the government began accepting applications for assistance, the program has only paid out $8.5 billion to farmers and only $9.7 billion if you include general commodity purchases that don't directly go to farmers.
From Reuters:
A USDA spokesperson said the department had as of Wednesday paid out a total of $8.52 billion in direct payments, one portion of a wider trade mitigation program which also includes support up to $1.2 billion through commodity purchases and $200 million allocated to developing foreign markets.
The top five commodities that received aid were soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton and sorghum while the top five states receiving the payments were Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana, the USDA spokesman said.
In hindsight, this make another recent report look much worse.
Bloomberg recently reported that farm income dropped by $11.8 billion in the first quarter of the year and, at the time of that report, it appeared that almost the total value of Trump's bailout had been wiped out. We know now that the total amount of his bailout hasn't been paid out, so farm income actually dropped by $3.3 billion more than the Trump regime has paid ($8.5 billion) to farmers.
It's not as if the second or third quarter of the year will be any better while Trump's trade war continues. It could even be worse. Farmers could conceivably lose triple the value of Trump's bailout this year.