USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue Wednesday maintained his stance that a third round of trade aid payments to farmers should not be needed. His view did not shift even as lawmakers like House Ag Committee Ranking Member Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said a third round of Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments would be “vital” for agriculture.
Perdue warned lawmakers that the MFP efforts were aid payments, not price support or safety net payments. Perdue told reporters after the hearing that he put odds at 10% – one in ten – for a third round of payments. But he acknowledged that if directed to make the payments, USDA would provide them even as he insisted repeatedly that President Donald Trump’s tweet on the possibility of another round of trade aid started with the word “if,” meaning the payments were not guaranteed to be coming.
Some say the reason Perdue is pushing back on the aid effort is that a third round of payments would signal that China would not be living up to terms of the phase-one agreement between the two sides.
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