American farmers are in crisis, facing rising costs, disrupted export markets, and mounting financial pressure.

While farming has always faced unavoidable challenges, such as weather, pests, and the vagaries of demand, the present problems are entirely of Washington’s making. The Trump administration’s tariffs have damaged critical trading relations, and its war against Iran has disrupted energy and fertilizer trade through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington’s response to beleaguered American agricultural interests has been billions of dollars in emergency aid and promises that future trade deals will deliver additional relief.

It is a familiar cycle: Washington creates new risks for American producers, taxpayers absorb part of the resulting losses, and the underlying policies remain in place. Farmers receive temporary assistance but are left to navigate the same uncertain markets and elevated costs that made the assistance necessary.

Indeed, even before Washington’s latest disastrous war of choice, its reckless trade salvos had placed farmers under the gun. In response, last December the administration announced $12 billion in one-time payments to eligible producers . This proved insufficient, and last week the USDA announced nearly $14 billion in additional payments through its Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs for the 2025 crop year, a record.

A look at U.S. agricultural exports makes clear why these subsidies were increasingly seen as necessary. For example, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, agricultural exports to China have fallen 66% in 2025, a massive decline that has hammered American soybean producers.

Among other major U.S. trading partners, such as Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union, the decline was a less-eye-watering but still significant 6%. While exports to other countries have increased, somewhat offsetting the balance, the result has been a loss of billions of dollars in sales. This represents the worsening of an almost 10-year downward trend in the U.S. balance of trade in agriculture, the result of Washington’s turn toward protectionism beginning with the first Trump administration.

Farmers, already under intense financial pressure, were then smacked by the economic consequences of the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran, which, because of disruptions and lost capacity, has sent the cost of petrochemical products soaring. As of early October, Reuters reported that the average price for U.S. diesel had reached a record $6.28/gallon, an almost 70% increase since the start of the war in February. The Ukraine War, which President Donald Trump pledged to quickly end upon taking office, was cited by that same report as a large contributing factor; the targeting by both sides of petrochemical infrastructure, international sanctions against Moscow, and other export disruptions have been mainstays of the conflict.

But it isn’t just fuel. The price shock resulting from the war against Iran has also hit fertilizer, producing a double whammy for American farmers. The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly a third of global seaborne fertilizer trade, including major volumes of urea, ammonia, and sulfur, and the price of various fertilizers dependent upon these inputs has risen between 10% and 50% over the past year. Industry experts project that these elevated prices will persist at least through 2028.

For farmers already operating on thin margins, this has translated to a surge of financial pressure. The USDA’s September 2026 forecast placed total farm-sector debt at approximately $605.1 billion, an almost 5% increase over 2025 in nominal terms .

While Washington is holding out the promise of another round of aid, USDA research reveals that such payments have historically benefited large, commercial farms rather than smaller operations. Indeed, with better access to credit, more diversified revenue, greater capacity to absorb temporary losses, and more experience in navigating farm aid programs, big agribusiness is much less sensitive to fluctuations in cash flow and input costs. Smaller and mid-sized farms have much less room for error.

While farmers habitually face genuine weather, price, and production risks — much buying and selling is handled via futures contracts — there is a difference between Washington helping them manage those risks and Washington compensating them for avoidable disruptions and predictable losses caused by wild trade wars and reckless foreign interventions. Repeated bailouts conceal policy costs and weaken incentives for the system to change course. A more coherent approach is necessary, one that begins by pursuing a diplomatic end to the war against Iran and a reassessment of the tariffs that have been dragging down exports and raising input costs.

Farmers also need a predictable policy framework focused on genuine agricultural risks. The original 2018 Agriculture Improvement Act, which was repeatedly extended since its enactment, expired at the end of September. As things currently stand, the “farm bill” is little more than a patchwork of extensions and emergency payments.

American farmers do not need more slogans about putting them first, nor do they need promises of additional handouts if they help Trump and the Republicans win the midterms — an increasingly unlikely scenario in any case. They need policies that stop making them collateral damage in trade disputes and military conflicts in the first place.

Until Washington confronts that reality, policymakers will disrupt markets, farmers will absorb the losses, taxpayers will finance relief, and the sad and unnecessary cycle will repeat itself.