Farmers will need a bailout this year, Thune says

Farmers will need government relief this year after the trade war choked off access to key markets, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Sunday.Why it matters: Thune's comment, following a promise from President Trump earlier in the week, sets up a potential battle over what would likely be a multibillion-dollar package — and a separate fight over why it was needed in the first place. Catch up quick: China has stopped buying U.S. soybeans, depriving American farmers of their largest export market.That happened months ago, but the issue came back to the fore this week when the U.S. government pledged to bail out Argentina — and the Argentines promptly turned around and started selling discounted soybeans to China.Congressional Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blasted the idea of helping Argentine farmers while doing nothing for domestic sales.What they're saying: "There are markets right now that aren't open to some of our commodities," Thune said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. "As a consequence of that, there are — we've got a big harvest coming in here in South Dakota, corn and soybeans, and no place to go with it."Thune said the Senate Agriculture Committee, of which he's a member, was already looking at potential solutions to support farmers. "At the end of the day, our farmers are probably going to need some financial assistance this year, and a lot of the revenue coming in off the tariffs is what they would use to provide that."Flashback: The trade war in Trump's first term also ended up requiring a farm bailout, one big enough to absorb almost all the tariff revenue collected.Yes, but: There's a lot more revenue this time — more than $30 billion a month, making the cost of a relief program more manageable, assuming an agreement can be made. That may be a tall assumption, given rumblings from Democrats already regarding the hurdles a tariff-funded bailout would have to face, like CBO scoring and mandatory offsets.What to watch: For all of the assurances by Trump and Thune, no program is on the table yet, and it's not clear when one might be coming.

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