AGRICULTURE/CHINA/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration will begin paying $14.5 billion to farmers hurt by the US-China trade war by the end of August. It’s the second round of aid the administration will pay out as negotiations with Beijing continue past the one-year mark. Farmers received about $10 billion in aid last year. The trade situation has ‘persisted longer than we expected,’ said Rob Johannson, chief economist at the Department of Agriculture, on a call with reporters. American farmers have been some of the hardest hit by China’s retaliatory tariffs, which were put on a range of commodities including soybeans, corn and wheat. The tariffs made those American agricultural products more expensive for Chinese importers, and private buyers nearly stopped purchasing US-grown soybeans — leaving a record amount sitting in storage at the end of 2018. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue first announced that there would be a second round of aid payments in May, after trade talks unraveled and President Donald Trump abruptly escalated tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods.”
–Katie Lobosco and Vanessa Yurkevich, “Trump administration starts paying $14.5 billion to farmers hurt by the trade war,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 25, 2019 1:28 pm