The winners and losers ofTrump’s first tariff warstrongly suggest that bankruptcies and farm consolidation could surge during his second term, with major corporations best placed to benefit from his polices at the expense of independent farmers.
New analysis by the non-profit research advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW), shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows that Trump’s first-term tariffs were particularly devastating forfarmersin the Maga rural heartlands.
Farmbankruptciessurged by 24% from 2018 to 2019 – the highest number in almost a decade – as retaliatory tariffscost US farmers a staggering $27bn.
Numbers of farms fell at the highest rate in two decades with the smallest operations (one to nine acres) hardest hit, declining by 14% between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, the number of farms earning $2.5m to $5m more than doubled.
Losses from the first-term trade war were mostly concentrated in the midwest due to the region’s focus on export commodities such as corn, soy and livestock that are heavily reliant on China. States with more diverse agricultural sectors such as California and Florida experienced lower rates of insolvency and export declines than in previous years, suggesting the trade war played a role, according toTrump’s Last Tariff Tantrum: A Warning.
The breakdown in closures suggests that Trump’s $28bn tariff bailout package in 2018-19 disproportionately benefited mega-farms while smaller-scale farms and minority farmers were left behind.
The top tenth of recipients received 54% of all taxpayer bailout funds. The top 1% received on average $183,331 while the bottom 80% got less than $5,000 each, according toprevious analysis.
The number of Black farmers fell by 8% between 2017 and 2022, while white farmer numbers declined by less than 1%.
“President Trump’s first-term trade war hurt independent farmers and benefited corporations, offering a warning of what is to come without a plan to help farmers adjust,” said Ben Murray, senior researcher at FWW.
“Trump’s latest slap-dash announcements will likely further undermine US farmers while benefiting multinationals who can easily shift production abroad to avoid high tariffs. Farmers’ livelihoods should not be used as a foreign policy bargaining chip. Chaotic tariff tantrums are no way to run US farm policy.”
The first 100 days of Trump 2.0 have led to turmoil and uncertainty for consumers, producers and the markets, amid an extraordinary mix of threats, confusing U-turns and retaliatory tariffs from trading partners.
Trump’s second trade war could prove even more damaging for US farmers and rural communities, as it comes on top ofdismantling of agencies, funds and Biden-era policies to help farmers adapt to climate shocks, tackle racist inequalities and strengthen regional food markets. By the end of April, more than $6bn of promised federal funds had been frozen or terminated, according to theNational Sustainable Agriculture Association’s tracker.
Rural counties rallied behind Trump in 2024, giving him a majority in all but 11 of the 444 farming-dependent counties,according to analysis by Investigate Midwest.
Last week, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, played down the likely harm to Trump’s farmer base, but said the administration was preparing a contingency bailout plan if farmers are hurt by escalating trade wars. “We are working on that. We are preparing for it. We don’t believe it will be necessary,” Rollins told Fox News. “We are out across the world, right now, opening up new markets.”
US farm policy has long incentivized large-scale monocropping of export commodities such as wheat, corn, soy, sorghum, rice, cotton – and industrial animal farming – rather than production for domestic consumption. This globalized agricultural system favors large and corporate-owned operations, while undermining small, diversified farms and regional food systems. It is a system inextricably tied to global commodity markets, and therefore extremely vulnerable to trade wars.
The 2018-19 bailout payments were set up in a way that, inadvertently perhaps, “subsidized, encouraged and promoted” the loss of smaller and mid-size farms to the benefit of mega-farms – in large part because the tariffs were implemented without a coherent plan to reform US farm policy and help farmers transition to domestic markets.
The number of large farms – those earning more than $500,000 – grew by 18% between 2017 and 2022. “The taxpayers are essentially being asked to subsidize farm consolidation,”the Environmental Working Group said at the time.
Trump’s first-term tariffs hit soybean farmers, who are highly dependent on China, hardest, with exports slumping 74% in 2018 from the previous year. The number of soybean farms fell almost 11% between 2017 and 2022 – a significant turn of fortune given the 9% rise over the previous decade. In fact, the only winners after Trump’s trade war were big farms, those harvesting at least 1,000 acres of soybeans, the FWW analysis found.
The 2018/19 tariff bailout package was also used to facilitate contracts and commodity purchases. A significant share went to the billion-dollar corporations which already have a stranglehold on the US food system, and rural communities.
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Arkansas-headquartered Tyson Foods received almost $29m in federal contracts and purchases between August 2018 and July 2019, while Brazil-based JBS secured nearly $78m. JBS used its market power to undercut competition, winning over a quarter of the total $300m in taxpayer dollars allocated towards federal pork purchases, according to FWW.
The two multinationals currently control 40% to 50% of the US beef market, 45% of poultry and, along with two other corporations, 70% of the pork market.
Things could be even worse under Trump 2.0, with the president no longer seeming concerned by the markets or the polls.
John Boyd Jr, a fourth-generation Black farmer, has been unable to secure a farm operating loan since Trump’s tariffs sent commodity prices tumbling. USDA field offices that help farmers apply for credit and government subsidies, which Black, Native and other minority farmers were already disproportionately denied, are being closed in the name of efficiency.
“This administration is putting the heads of Black farmers on the chopping block and ridiculing us in public with no oversight and no pushback from Congress,” said Boyd, president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, who farms soy, wheat, corn and beef in Virginia. “Trump’s tariffs are a recipe for complete disaster, and this time his voters in red states will also get punched in the face.”
Trump 2.0 tariffs against China are higher and broader, and also target scores of other agricultural trading partners. China is better prepared, having diversified its import markets to Brazil and other Latin American countries since Trump’s first trade war, while US domestic farm policy has barely changed.
“The administration seems completely blind to the harm that was done previously, and in many ways what’s happening now is already worse … The concern is that trades are stalled and nothing’s really flowing,” said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute forAgricultureand Trade Policy.
In late April, Chinacancelled a 12,000-tonne order of US pork– the largest cancellation since the start of the Covid pandemic, suggesting Trump’s tariff war is already sabotaging trade.
“The lesson from last time is we didn’t get the money to the right farmers. But the longer-term lesson is that the US lost credibility in trade. US Secretary Rollins is going overseas to try to open up export markets but they seem to be in deep denial right now about the harm that’s already been done to these relationships,” Lilliston said.
A USDA spokesperson said: “President Trump is putting farmers first and will ensure our farmers are treated fairly by our trading partners. The administration has not determined whether a farmer support program will be needed at this time. Should a program need to be implemented in the future, the department’s goal will always be to benefit farms of all sizes.”
JBS, Tyson and the American Farm Bureau Federation, a lobby group, have been contacted for comment.