Rural communities warned President Donald Trump that his unilateral trade war with the rest of the world would devastate farms, but Trump didn’t listen. Now, farmers face billions of dollars in losses, and the president is promising a bailout. However, the federal accounts built to aid farmers are low, and Trump needs a cash infusion to match his promises. He needs Congress — but Congress should not bail out his trade war. Instead, it should push the president to end his tariff campaign, which would put the economy on a more stable footing.

We have seen a version of this movie before. In Trump’s first term, he slapped a 25% duty on most imports from China. China retaliated by cutting soybean imports from the United States, replacing them with beans from Brazil. American farmers lost billions of dollars, and Trump bailed them out $28 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation. Congress then replenished the corporation’s account.