President Donald Trump says the federal government will distribute funds to producers impacted by coronavirus-related market disruptions in the “pretty near future.”
Trump made the comment Thursday at a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House. Asked about the possibility of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement still entering into force in July, Trump pivoted in his answer to a commitment to quickly distribute funds to impacted farmers and ranchers.
“We’ll be helping our farmers, by the way,” Trump said. “The farmers got hurt very badly by all of this. People are eating less from the standpoint that there’s no restaurants that are open, no businesses are open, no hotels are open, they’ll start to come back, but we’re going to be helping out our farmers.”
The Phase 3 coronavirus recovery package included $14 billion in funding to replenish the Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corp., as well as another $9.5 billion in direct assistance to livestock, specialty crop, and local foods producers.
Interested in more coverage and insights? Receive a free month of Agri-Pulse or Agri-Pulse West by clicking here.
On Wednesday, Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue said USDA was “in the process right now of collecting proposals and ideas from every sector affected so we can be … balanced and fair in the allocation of the $9.5 billion.”
For more news, go to www.Agri-Pulse.com.
