Rural America's farmers showed steadfast dedication to Trump at the ballot box. Farming communities backed him with an overwhelming 78% support in the 2024 election. Their strong support came despite economic hardships from policies meant to protect them.
The numbers paint a grim picture of how trade wars affected American farmers. Chinese agricultural exports dropped sharply from $23 billion to $15 billion during the first year of trade tensions. Farm bankruptcies jumped 24% nationwide between September 2018 and September 2019 [-5]. Iowa's farmers took a massive hit - their corn, soybean, and hog markets lost about $1.7 billion [-5]. The situation got worse as USDA program cuts eliminated hundreds of millions in potential revenue from government food purchases for schools and food banks. American farms typically provide about 40% of government food assistance.
This piece dives into the ways Trump's policies affected farming communities throughout America. From devastating trade wars to severe program cuts, many farmers who started with optimism now struggle to keep their operations alive.
Trump’s Rural Agenda: Promises vs. Reality
Donald Trump's 2016 campaign featured bold promises to American farmers that struck a chord in rural communities. He portrayed himself as their champion who would refresh agricultural economies through better trade deals, fewer regulations, and increased farm subsidies. Rural America had faced years of falling commodity prices and economic stagnation. They were ready for someone who seemed to understand their problems.
Overview of campaign commitments
Trump's agricultural platform focused on several key promises that spoke to farmers' biggest worries:
- Renegotiating trade agreements to secure better market access for American agricultural products
- Rolling back environmental regulations that farmers viewed as burdensome
- Expanding biofuel production to boost corn prices
- Cutting inheritance taxes to make farm succession easier
- Improving rural infrastructure including broadband internet access
These promises sparked excitement in farming communities that felt Washington politicians had long ignored them. Trump repeatedly assured farmers at Midwest campaign rallies they would be "so happy" with his presidency and wouldn't need to sell their farms because of money problems.
Original support from rural voters
Trump's message clearly connected with rural America. Farming-dependent counties backed him with an amazing 78% of votes in the 2024 election. Many farmers believed they had found someone who would put their interests ahead of global trade relationships.
"I thought he would fight for us," said Jim Goodman, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. "We needed someone to shake things up, and he promised he would."
This support went beyond economic self-interest. Rural Americans liked Trump's direct communication style and his promises to rebuild America's manufacturing base, which they saw as vital to rural economies. His focus on traditional values matched the social conservatism common in many farming communities.
The move from hope to hardship
Reality hit farmers hard and fast. Agricultural communities faced growing challenges tied directly to administration policies instead of the promised prosperity. Major trading partners responded to new tariffs with countermeasures that targeted American agricultural products.
Chinese agricultural exports fell sharply from $23 billion to $15 billion after the trade war began. Farm bankruptcy filings rose by 24% across the country between September 2018 and September 2019. These numbers showed the financial pressure farmers faced.
Farmers lost long-standing trading relationships that took decades to build instead of gaining new markets. The administration tried to reduce the damage through the Market Facilitation Program, which gave $28 billion in aid to affected farmers. The program didn't make up for lost markets and damaged trade relationships.
"The payments helped keep the lights on, but they didn't make up for the markets we lost," explained a fifth-generation Iowa farmer. "Once you lose a customer, it's hard to get them back."
The situation's irony wasn't lost on agricultural producers. The administration that promised to improve their economic situation created the need for the largest farm bailout since the Great Depression. Many farmers now depended more on government support than before—exactly what they hoped to avoid when they voted.
This stark difference between campaign promises and real-life results hit rural America hard. They trusted someone who claimed to understand their challenges, but ended up fighting harder than ever to survive economically.
Trade Policy Backlash and Market Losses
The administration's trade wars have freed unprecedented havoc on American farmers. Retaliatory tariffs now target agricultural exports directly. The administration's decision to impose Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and Section 301 tariffs on Chinese products started a chain reaction. This move crushed rural economies nationwide.
Retaliatory tariffs and export decline
Six major trading partners struck back hard. Canada, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, and Turkey hit U.S. agricultural exports with targeted tariffs. These measures affected products valued at $30.4 billion. Their retaliatory moves pushed tariff increases from 2% to a whopping 140%. The numbers tell a grim story - U.S. agricultural exports dropped by $27 billion from mid-2018 through 2019.
China's position as America's biggest agricultural buyer made things worse. U.S. soybean exports to China nose-dived by 74% in 2018 compared to the year before. China canceled a 12,000-ton order of U.S. pork in April 2025. This marked the largest cancelation since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impact on soybean, corn, and pork industries
Soybeans took the hardest hit from these policy changes and made up 71% of all agricultural export losses. This blow hit especially hard since China used to buy one in every four rows of American soybeans. The Midwest felt the pain most sharply. Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas saw their combined GDP shrink by $3.8 billion through 2019.
The corn industry faced its share of market disruption too. U.S. corn exports fell to $13.1 billion in 2023, nowhere near the record $18.6 billion from 2021. Pork producers struggled just as much. Their exports reached $8.2 billion in 2023 as global demand patterns kept changing.
Farmers faced massive financial pressure:
- Farm bankruptcies jumped 24% from 2018 to 2019—hitting a decade-high
- Soybean farm numbers dropped by nearly 11% between 2017 and 2022
- Small farms struggled the most while larger operations managed to stay afloat
The Trump administration tried to help by giving farmers $23 billion in direct payments during his first term. Critics said these bailouts didn't make up for the permanent market damage and created dependency instead of solutions.
Long-term damage to global competitiveness
The permanent change in global agricultural markets might be the biggest concern. International buyers looked elsewhere as U.S. exports became less reliable. Brazil now stands as China's go-to soybean source. They could turn an extra 70 million acres of pasture into crop fields—about 80% of total U.S. soybean acreage.
This market shake-up goes beyond soybeans. Chinese buyers head over to South America for poultry and pork more often. Australia looks ready to grab wheat, sorghum, and barley sales. Even loyal customers like Canada and Mexico have started to vary their import sources away from American products.
The damage to America's credibility might be permanent. One industry analyst put it clearly: "The lesson from last time is we didn't get the money to the right farmers. The longer-term lesson shows that the U.S. lost credibility in trade". The trust needed for stable trading relationships has taken a serious hit. This problem won't go away even if tariffs disappear tomorrow.
Agricultural economists suggest a better approach. They say the government should focus on expanding trade access and cutting input costs instead of protecting farmers with taxpayer-funded bailouts. The current strategy has ended up leaving American farmers more vulnerable and less competitive globally than before these trade wars started.
Immigration Policy and the Farm Labor Shortage
American agriculture faces a survival crisis that goes beyond trade wars. The crackdown on immigration threatens the very people who put food on our tables. About 73% of agricultural workers in the United States are immigrants. This labor crisis shows how Trump's promises to farmers have fallen apart.
ICE raids and labor flight
Tough immigration policies have created severe worker shortages in farming areas. ICE raids specifically target farm workers, which spreads fear throughout farming communities. After ICE operations in June 2025, some regions lost up to 70% of their workers. Crops rotted in fields while farm operations in California, Texas, and Pennsylvania came to a standstill.
"We really feel like we're being hunted, we're being hunted like animals," said an undocumented farm worker in Ventura County, California. This fear runs deep in agricultural communities where workers live in constant dread.
The economic damage happened quickly. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows agricultural jobs dropped 6.5% from March to July 2025. Fresh vegetable prices went up 2% while meat costs rose 1.9% between April and July. These numbers show how worker shortages make food more expensive.
Guest worker program failures
The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker Program should give foreign farm workers legal ways to work, but it doesn't work well. The program grew from 82,000 certified workers in 2008 to 242,000 in 2018. Yet it helps less than 10% of farm workers and only 4% of the total workers needed to produce our food.
Farmers say the program is "onerous, expensive, complex to guide, and fraught with additional rules and scrutiny". Workers face their own problems. The system creates unfair power dynamics because guest workers depend on one employer for everything - visas, housing, food, and wages.
The H-2A program has led to labor trafficking, with the anti-human-trafficking group Polaris Project reporting over 300 cases. Workers often pay illegal fees up to $4,500 before they even start working.
Why food security depends on migrant labor
American food security relies on immigrant workers. About 2.1 million immigrants work in growing, harvesting, processing, and selling food in the United States. Half of all farm workers lack documents. Undocumented workers make up at least 25% of agricultural workers and about 42% of crop farmworkers.
Taking away these workers would devastate our food system:
- Milk prices at stores would almost double
- Farm output would drop by $30-60 billion
- America would lose food independence and need more imports
Reform attempts keep failing. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act would have given more than one million undocumented farmworkers a path to citizenship. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate. Both farmers and workers remain stuck in this broken system.
"Without us, food is going to be more expensive. We're essential," one farmworker explained. "We worked through Covid. We worked through the wildfires in Los Angeles. We get up at 4am every day. No one else is willing to work the eight-, 10-hour days the way we do."
A California farmer put it simply: "America would not be as great as it is now if all my workforce were taken away". The truth hurts - American farming cannot survive without the very workers these policies target.
Defunding the USDA and Rural Development
Rural America faces devastating cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which should support farmers and rural communities. The Trump administration's proposed fiscal 2026 federal budget cuts nearly $7 billion from USDA funding. This continues a pattern that threatens to dismantle rural support systems.
Cuts to essential rural programs
The new budget aims to eliminate crucial USDA Rural Development initiatives that have helped rural America thrive for generations. These cuts target several key programs:
- USDA Section 502 direct home loans for low-income borrowers, which has helped 2.2 million rural families become homeowners since 1950
- Rural self-help housing grants that have operated for 60 years
- Rural business programs that give vital financial support to small-town entrepreneurs
- Rural housing vouchers that help vulnerable residents afford safe housing
The cuts happen alongside the elimination of affordable housing grants through the HOME program. This initiative has built or repaired more than 1.3 million affordable homes nationwide, with at least 540,000 in rural or substantially rural congressional districts. Housing experts warn this will block tens of thousands of future affordable housing projects. Appalachian towns and rural counties, where government help is already limited, will feel the strongest effects.
The administration plans to move certain USDA Rural Development Programs to the Small Business Administration (SBA). Senator Peter Welch called this move "alarming for rural communities in red and blue states alike". Rather than improve operations, this change will make it harder for farmers and rural businesses to get the specialized support they need.
Elimination of climate and conservation grants
Climate and conservation funding that supported green farming practices has disappeared under the current administration. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins canceled the $3 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program in April 2025, calling it a "slush fund" with high administrative costs. This affected 140 organizations nationwide that worked with about 60,000 farms.
Conservation efforts in farming regions have suffered greatly from this cancelation. Maryland's 26 climate-smart programs, worth $812.5 million, stopped when funding froze. Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, a Pennsylvania nonprofit managing a $59 million climate grant, had to let go of 60 employees.
The administration also canceled billions in conservation funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. The Regional Conservation Partnership Program lost essential support. Grant recipients received no explanation for these cuts, even though many had started their projects.
Understaffed and disconnected local offices
USDA's human infrastructure continues to crumble through relocations and staff cuts. More than 15,300 employees have left since Trump took office, taking buyouts and early retirement. The administration now forces about 2,600 workers—more than half the Washington, D.C. workforce—to move to five hubs across the country.
This exodus of experienced staff severely affects services. Chad Hart, an agricultural economics professor at Iowa State University, predicts a "bumpy transition." He compares it to Trump's first term, when relocated Agriculture offices took months to function properly again.
Owen Hart from the National Association of Counties stresses USDA Rural Development's importance for communities that can't get private investment or philanthropy. "USDA Rural Development is the most important partner" for many communities needing essential services like water systems and local hospitals.
Local communities already feel these cuts deeply. The administration cut $1 billion from federal programs that let schools and food banks buy fresh food from local farmers. The Treasure Coast Food Bank, which once received $3.5 million to feed 250,000 people weekly, must now rely on processed foods instead.
Collapse of Food Assistance and Local Markets
America's food assistance programs face severe cuts that threaten both vulnerable populations and the farmers who depend on them. The administration's sudden budget reductions have created widespread food insecurity and destroyed essential markets that struggling farmers rely on.
USAID and school food program shutdowns
The Trump administration stopped funding U.N. World Food Program emergency initiatives by canceling contracts worth approximately $560 million in humanitarian aid. The US was the biggest contributor to WFP last year, giving $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in total donations. This sudden stop affects food assistance in 14 countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.
Secretary of Defense Marco Rubio made an announcement in June 2025 that "USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance". Food for Peace, USAID's signature program with strong support from both parties, now faces an uncertain future. The Lancet published a study showing USAID's work saved nearly 92 million lives between 2000 and 2021. These funding cuts could result in 14 million more deaths worldwide.
The situation at home looks equally grim with critical school food programs getting eliminated. Budget cuts of $660 million to the Local Food for Schools program have left 600 schools in West Virginia unable to buy fresh food from local producers. School districts nationwide now lack resources to provide nutritious meals to their students.
Impact on food banks and low-income families
The administration's decision to cut The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) has left food banks struggling. Hudson Valley's Regional Food Bank branch will now provide 2 million fewer meals than last year. This crisis hits harder as food bank visits have jumped 85% since 2019.
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" has created more problems by:
- Cutting SNAP benefits by nearly $186 billion
- Taking away benefits from about 4 million people, including children, seniors, and veterans
- Making parents with children ages 14 and older meet work requirements
- Leaving 10 million more Americans without insurance by 2034
These cuts will eliminate 6-9 billion meals each year according to Feeding America—about the same amount their food bank network provided last year. This creates what they call an impossible situation where "food banks would need to double their operations to close the gap SNAP leaves behind".
How local farmers lost key revenue streams
Small farmers have lost vital markets due to these policy changes. They can no longer count on reliable sales from Local Food Purchase Assistance and Local Food for Schools programs that helped them build new business relationships.
Wisconsin's program helped nearly 300 farmers, with more than half being new to farming. These programs boosted entire rural communities' economies. One farmer put it simply: "When we invest in our local food system, we're really investing on onshoring our food production system".
New York's farm distilleries get 70% of their raw materials from local farmers. Rural economies now face declining sales, job losses, and crumbling infrastructure without federal support.
John Spangler brings 40 years of farming experience to the table. He expects to lose nearly $100,000 in revenue after these cuts affected his work with eight county school systems. His words sum up the situation: "I've seen a lot of things and fought through a lot of things. But now the rug has been completely pulled from under us".
Favoring Agribusiness Over Family Farms
Trump's agricultural policies have dramatically altered the map to favor corporate interests while hurting family farmers. Previous administrations tried to maintain some balance, but current regulations clearly put big agribusiness profits ahead of rural community survival.
Deregulation and corporate consolidation
The agricultural supply chain now faces alarming levels of corporate consolidation. About three dozen companies now control everything from seeds to fertilizer and meat production to farming equipment. These corporations can now "decide who gets to farm and how they farm, what food gets produced and sold, and how much we all pay for it".
The greenhouse gas emissions from the top five global meat and dairy companies exceed those of major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP. These factory farms devastate rural communities with air and water pollution from manure lagoons.
The administration's trade deals with Japan and proposed NAFTA replacement have ignored climate change completely. This benefits global meat companies that face criticism about their rising emissions. The administration has consistently supported multinational meat processors by increasing pork processing speeds and rejecting mandatory Country of Origin Labeling.
GIPSA rollback and weakened protections
Small farmers suffered a major setback when the administration rolled back the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rules. This eliminated crucial protections that helped small farmers compete against the few corporations dominating meat processing.
The GIPSA rules, developed through years of stakeholder input, would have:
- Protected producers' rights without proving industry-wide harm
- Offered safeguards against unfair capital investment requirements
- Made poultry processor purchasing practices fairer
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue openly supported this consolidation: "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out... I don't think in America we, for any small business, have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability".
Small farms squeezed out of the market
Family farms have faced devastating results. Small farms' share of the U.S. agricultural market dropped from 37.2% to just 14.5% between 1987 and 2012. Meanwhile, multinational agribusinesses saw their market share surge from 38.3% to 66.4%.
Subsidy programs have sped up this consolidation. The top 1% of recipients got 26% of farm subsidy payments from 1995 to 2014. Small farmers depend on programs that build relationships with food hubs, food banks and schools - programs the administration eliminated.
The "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" makes things worse by adding $54 billion over 10 years to commodity support programs that help large growers. More than 80% of New York's farms don't even qualify for these programs.
The administration's policies across rural America have consistently put corporate profits first, creating an agricultural system that threatens small producers' survival.
Discrimination and Neglect of Minority Farmers
Minority farmers struggle today as the USDA dismantles programs that were created to fight historical discrimination. The agency has removed the term "socially disadvantaged" from its vocabulary. This term used to identify farmers who faced discrimination based on their race, ethnicity, or gender.
Civil rights office dysfunction at USDA
The USDA's Office of Civil Rights shows serious problems. Recent data reveals a troubling fact - out of more than 300 civil rights complaints filed by employees in fiscal 2019, the department found wrongdoing in just two cases. This poor track record becomes even more concerning since the USDA has already paid billions in settlements to Black and Native American farmers who were unfairly denied loans.
Lack of outreach to underserved communities
Trump's decision to end diversity programs has hit minority farmers hard. Black farmers received a mere 0.1% of the coronavirus relief meant for American farmers. County offices often favor white farmers they know well, which leaves Black farmers to figure out the system by themselves.
Barriers to land access and funding
The results paint a grim picture. Black farmers have lost about 90% of their 19 million acres since 1910, with land losses valued at roughly $326 billion. The decline shows no signs of stopping. Only 1.3% of today's 3.4 million US farmers are Black, compared to 1 million a century ago. The government created the $2.2 billion Discrimination Financial Assistance Program to help farmers who faced discrimination. Yet many minority farmers still can't qualify for this help.
Environmental Rollbacks and Rural Impact
Budget cuts have hit environmental programs hard and devastated rural communities that rely on natural resources to survive economically. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget has an unprecedented $4 billion cut to national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges—a 35% decrease from 2024 funding.
Loss of conservation incentives
The government has dismantled conservation programs that helped farmers be environmentally responsible. By February 2025, around 1,200 Natural Resources Conservation Service staff lost their jobs. Farmers no longer receive the technical help they need. The government also ended grant contracts without warning, including a $630,000 conservation outreach program in Colorado. This sudden contract freeze damaged the trust between farmers and the USDA.
Oil and gas leasing on rural lands
The administration wants to speed up oil and gas leasing on public lands through a simplified process that finishes reviews in six months. The Bureau of Land Management doesn't defer parcels before environmental reviews anymore. This change puts fossil fuel extraction ahead of other ways to use the land.
How rural economies lost natural assets
Rural communities have lost valuable natural resources that power their economies. Most Americans (83%) want to keep or increase funding for national parks and forests. Despite this support, the administration cut recreation spending by 62%. These policies ended up trading rural America's economic future for corporate profits.
Conclusion
American farmers trusted and hoped in promises of agricultural prosperity. Four years later, they struggle to survive. Trump's policies have undermined American farming's foundation, despite strong political backing from rural areas. The trade wars wreaked havoc on export markets. Retaliatory tariffs caused farm exports to drop by billions. Tough immigration rules created worker shortages in farming regions. Crops rotted in fields while farmers' livelihoods hung by a thread.
The cuts to USDA programs stripped away rural America's vital support systems. Small producers lost key revenue when food assistance programs linking them to schools and food banks vanished. The administration claimed these changes would benefit American farmers. Reality painted a different picture. Big agricultural corporations flourished while family farms went bankrupt at record rates.
These changes have left scars too deep to heal quickly. The agricultural world looks completely different now. Farmers lost their export markets. Rural infrastructure crumbled. Trading partners' trust eroded. Many farmers who believed Trump would champion their cause now doubt their communities can bounce back.
A bitter truth emerges - the hardest-hit regions kept showing strongest support for these policies. This gap between political promises and economic reality tells a troubling story. American farmers need policies that build up rural communities instead of using them as political pawns.
Farming communities will face hardship until policies focus on environmentally responsible farming, fair markets, and reliable workforce solutions. Trump's farmer story warns us about the gap between campaign promises and actual governance. The farmers who once felt hopeful now must rebuild what misguided policies destroyed.
