OMAHA (DTN) -- Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told the Financial Times that the Trump administration could announce an aid package soon for U.S. farmers and could use tariff revenue to fund it.

"There may be circumstances under which we will be very seriously looking to and announcing a package soon," Rollins told the Financial Times. "We are reviewing markets every day."

Rollins said tariff income was "absolutely a potential" to fund an aid package to farmers.

In the interview, Rollins blamed farmers' financial pressures on the Biden administration for failing to negotiate new trade deals.

"Under the last administration, President Biden and his administration had no new trade deals, and in fact, went from a surplus under President Trump for agriculture and everything to a $50 billion deficit this year just in our ag products," Rollins told FT.

Rollins was in London this week as part of President Trump's visit to the country. She posted a video on social media with Luke Lindberg, USDA's undersecretary for trade, stating, "America's farmers are producing record yields! And now, under President Trump's leadership, we are working around the clock to secure record deals."

Under the first Trump administration, USDA used $23 billion in funds from the Commodity Credit Corp. to provide trade aid to producers.

Rollins' comments come as the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) warned policymakers this week that nearly a majority of farmers believe agriculture is "on the brink of a farm crisis." NCGA has been pressing Congress to pass nationwide E15 legislation as a way to increase demand for what is expected to be a record corn crop.

"Farmers are in a lot of economic pain right now" said Kenneth Hartman Jr., an Illinois farmer and NCGA's president. "It's a four-alarm fire in the countryside, and we need members of Congress to act fast to remove barriers to markets. Passing legislation for the year-round, nationwide sale of higher blends of ethanol would be an important first step in addressing this problem."

NCGA noted farmers are facing the largest three-year decline in net cash receipts in history because of declining crop farm profitability associated with lower prices and elevated input costs. Despite demand for the corn crop also forecast at a record level, it still trails production, and any reduction in demand could further drive down corn prices.

With soybeans, export sales for the new marketing year are down 4.8 million metric tons (mmt) from a year ago. China last year at this time had purchased 4.9 mmt of soybeans. This year, Chinese buyers have not made any buys with the country imposing a 34% tariff on U.S. soybeans.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, complained this week on a call with reporters that the U.S.-China talks in Spain have focused on TikTok while there has been little information about whether China will again start buying U.S. soybeans.

"All we heard from negotiators in Spain this week was about TikTok, but they were also supposed to talk about soybeans," Grassley said on the call. "We've got to have a market for soybeans or some places aren't going to have space for farmers to deliver them. Unless you have got on-farm storage for everything you have got to go to the local elevator."

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to have a meeting on Friday, but it's unclear how much beyond TikTok those talks will include.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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