Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Thursday that the administration will offer $16 billion in aid to farmers to offset the losses caused by the trade war with China. President Trump is scheduled to formally unveil the program later this afternoon.
“Some of this $16 billion is going to be used for market access programs to go and build markets elsewhere,” Perdue said in an appearance on Fox Business. “If China’s decided not to play, then we’ll sell these great products elsewhere.” He cited India, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, among others, as new markets.
“We’re having small singles and double hits out here. But obviously the China market is huge. We would hope they would come back to the table,” he said.
Trump and his officials have claimed that they were close to a trade deal with Beijing at the end of April, only to have China attempt to walk back several concessions at the last minute. This prompted the administration to hike all existing tariffs on Chinese goods to 25%, up from 10% in most cases, as a means to pressure China restore the concessions. Trump has also threatened to place 25% tariffs on a further $300 billion worth of goods, effectively covering all Chinese imports.
Beijing has denied it ever made the concessions and has said it would retaliate by hiking tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods to as high as 25% starting June 1.
Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Japan at the G-20 summit in late June.
[Related: White House to meet with farmers hurt by trade war with China]
