Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday defended President Donald Trump's decision to provide $12 billion in emergency relief for American farmers being hurt by foreign retaliation to the administration's tariffs.
"There's not a farmer in this country that would rather not have a good crop and a fair price," Perdue told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria." "The problem is, they haven't been getting fair prices because of restrictions of other countries placed on productivity. President Trump is the first one to call them on that."
China, he added, has been "cheating for years ... it's like watching a game where the umpire is clearly prejudiced and nobody stops him."
Trump on Wednesday morning, following Perdue's appearance, tweeted that China is specifically targeting farmers.
Perdue said the $12 billion aid package is a "temporary measure for agriculture producers" that is authorized through the USDA.
"This is a temporary measure, hopefully to show China and other countries they cannot bully the U.S. into caving in on unfair trade practices," said Perdue. "That's exactly what President Trump's strategy is, and I think it will work. Certainly, we'd rather have trade than aid and restore the markets, but not at unfair practices."
The details of the $12 billion aid program will most likely come out in mid-to-late August, and farmers will be able to sign up after Labor Day, said Perdue.
"There will be a portion of payments directly for crops like soybeans and corn and wheat, and even some dairy and some pork payments," said Perdue. "For the rest of the money, we will buy those commodities and redistribute them to food banks and school nutrition programs.
"Third, there's a program about creating different markets, the markets where we can go in and have a level playing field."
Meanwhile, Perdue said Wednesday that the response to Trump's tariffs should be for China to stop their own unfair trade practices, such as intellectual property theft.
"That's even happening in agriculture, [with] stealing corn seeds in Iowa," said Perdue.
Bartiromo pointed out that there are several other countries being affected by Trump's tariffs, including in the European Union, Mexico and Canada.
Perdue responded that with the EU, there are "frankly more non-tariff barriers for American producers."
"All American farmers want is a level playing field," said Perdue. "Our productive farmers and ranchers in this country could outproduce anyone in the country and the world, and they would if they had a level playing field."
But the EU is "one of the offenders," said Perdue, and "even our neighbors Canada and Mexico have not played fair. Canada as you know charges tariffs of 125 percent to 300 percent on products."
If foreign nations keep retaliating against the tariffs, however, Perdue said the pain will "get worse on them."
"You see the EU is in town today looking to negotiate and talk about these things," said Perdue. "We think we are very close to an agreement with Mexico."
He also said he is not surprised that other countries are targeting states where voters picked Trump for president.
"These are smart political people," he said. "They know exactly what they're doing, they are trying to bully the president politically ... politically they are playing a game and we expect that to continue."
However, Perdue said that Trump's move on tariffs is not a political game, but that he's doing "exactly what he told farmers he would do. He knew that there would be discomfort and disruption and [they would be] retaliated against, because we have a surplus in agriculture.
"Our farmers are some of the most productive in the world and we export more than we import. Therefore, the farmers and agriculture products always the tip of the spear when retaliation comes."
Perdue added that the administration expects to have a trade deal with Mexico soon and hopes that Canada "will see the president is serious about this."
"We think there's discussions going on with China, and a lot of things you see in public is different than what you see in private," said Perdue.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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