What do Trump-supporting farmers make of his tariff and DOGE policies?

President Donald Trump gets a lot of his political support from farm country. But those who put food on our tables are worried that his policies, from tariffs to funding freezes, will make it harder for them to do their jobs.

The prospect of a Trump-created trade war has farmers "on edge," said The Washington Post. One Iowa farm family said the president's tariffs will drive up the costs of Chinese-made herbicides and tractors they use, and will likely cut off the markets for soybeans (China) and corn (Mexico) that the state produces in abundance. Hawkeye State producers "don't know where we're going to be as far as our soybean and corn markets," said Suzanne Shirbroun, whose family grows both crops. It's a "fresh element of worry" as the nation's farmers deal with an "unforgiving business environment," said the Post.

The concerns go beyond tariffs. The "rapid-fire array of directives" from the Trump administration has "paused federal funding on a range of programs and grants" that benefit farmers, said The New York Times. The DOGE-driven funding freeze at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) briefly "left hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food and supplies sitting in ports," while other federal programs — including those that pay farmers for energy production and soil conservation — have also been halted. The nation's farmers "don't need any more uncertainty than they already have," said Nick Levendofsky, the executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union.

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What did the commentators say?

Farmers have been "played for suckers" by Trump, said Ben Palen, a fifth-generation farmer, at the Kansas Reflector. Palen's fellow farmers supported Trump "because he promised less regulation and greater prosperity" to the agriculture sector. That's not what has happened so far. Instead, the "only constant is chaos." But Trump won't pay the price for the uncertainty he has created for agriculture. Instead, the pain will be felt by "farmers, small towns and Main Street businesses" in the rural red states that gave him their votes. The resulting "economic and social consequences could be unprecedented," said Palen.

"Every consumer feels it at the grocery store" when farmers feel pain, said Rob Larew, the president of the National Farmers Union, at MSNBC. Farmers take on an "immense amount of financial risk" to plant crops and raise livestock when all that work could be wiped out by bad weather or a turn in the financial markets. The programs Trump has frozen have traditionally helped those farmers "stay afloat when times get tough." The new administration has added "more uncertainty to a stressed farm economy."

What next?

American farmers are "struggling to make critical decisions ahead of the spring thaw," said NBC News. The funding freeze comes at a crucial moment in the "seasonal cycle of many farms." It's when most crops are planted and animals are born, and nature keeps moving even if the federal government does not. Farmers find it "difficult — if not impossible — to pause or reverse course." The delays in federal funding "might not seem like a big deal for someone who is not a farmer," said Ang Roell, a farmer and beekeeper in Massachusetts. "But it actually is."