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With federal relief on the horizon, Black farmers worry it won’t come soon enough
A cotton field in north Louisiana.
Dylan Hawkins
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Dylan Hawkins
NEW ORLEANS – James Davis had the best year in his entire farming career this year.
The third-generation Black row crop farmer estimated picking almost 1,300 pounds of cotton, an average of 50 bushels of soybeans, and an average of around 155 bushels of corn on 2,500 acres of his farmland in northeast Louisiana.
But with U.S. commodities facing steep retaliatory tariffs overseas, he says he and many other farmers can’t sell their crops for enough to cover the loans they take out to fund the growing season.
The tariffs, Davis said, are making it almost impossible to survive.
“To have that kind of yield and still not be able to pay all your bills, that tells you something is broken in the farming industry,” Davis said.
In order to plan for next year, farmers need relief now, Davis said. At a recent meeting with his banker, the bank projected 2026 revenues in order to secure crop loans, and the cash flow math wasn’t adding up — the farm’s expected income wasn’t enough to cover operating loans once input costs, equipment notes, land rent and insurance premiums were factored in.
The Trump administration announced just this week a new $12 billion package of one-time bridge payments for American farmers like Davis, aimed at helping them recover from temporary market disruptions and high production costs.
“This relief will provide much needed certainty as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops,” Trump said during a White House roundtable event. “It’ll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families.”
Davis says that type of help can’t come soon enough.
“Without bailouts, it is hard to make crop loans work on paper,” he said in an interview with NPR on Monday.
James Davis asks a question at a panel on farm finances at the National Black Growers Council conference in New Orleans on Dec. 10, 2025. Davis is a third-generation Black row crop farmer who said that despite having the best year he’s ever had in his farming career, he’s still struggling to pay his bills.
Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
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Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
At the same time, however, the Trump Administration dismantled decades-old USDA programs designed to assist Black farmers by eliminating the “socially disadvantaged” designation, including programs like the 2501 Program, which many Black row-crop farmers rely on for access to credit, technical assistance, and conservation support that are otherwise difficult to secure at county-level USDA offices. The USDA did not respond to requests for interviews or comment.
Those supports, experts said, were designed to help smaller farmers and farmers of color remain on the land.
Welcome relief may not come in time
The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program accounts for up to $11 billion of the newly announced package, and offers proportional payments to farmers growing major commodities, including row crops like soybeans, corn and cotton.
Payments are expected to begin by February of next year, and are designed to offset losses from the 2025 crop year.
For many farmers, that isn’t soon enough. While the bridge payment may help with crop loans, there are immediate bills due for many in the coming weeks.
“This needs to show up like Santa Claus underneath the Christmas tree, to be honest with you,” said PJ Haynie, a fifth-generation Black farmer with rice operations in Virginia and Arkansas and chairman of the National Black Growers Council, which met in New Orleans this week for its annual conference.
“Our landlords want their money by the end of the year — our seed and input and chemical and equipment companies that we have to make payments by the end of the year,” he said.
Some farmers may have relationships with bankers and companies that will work with them and extend payment deadlines a few months, Haynie said — others don’t. And farmers are grateful for any support they receive, but, Haynie said, the one-time bridge payments aren’t enough.
“They still won’t make us whole because of the losses that we’ve incurred because of the markets, the tariffs, the trade,” he said. “But every dollar helps.”
Farmers already face challenges like unpredictable weather, pests and stagnant commodity prices, as well as rising input costs including machinery and fertilizer purchases. “We plant and we pray,” as Haynie put it. Tariffs have only compounded those challenges.
Black farmers face additional challenges
Black farmers like Haynie and Davis make up less than 2% of all U.S. farmers — and Black row-crop farmers, like those at this week’s conference, are an even smaller slice of that.
“Our herd is small,” Haynie said, “and if we can protect the herd, the herd will grow.”
Black farmers have asked the federal government for loan relief and other assistance for decades. A century ago, Black farmers owned at least 16 million acres of land. Today, Haynie said they hold around 2 million.
Following the Civil War, Black Americans were promised “40 acres and a mule” by the federal government, but many say that promise never came to pass.
Over the course of the past 100 years, the amount of Black-owned farmland dropped by 90%, according to Data for Progress, due to higher rates of loan and credit denials, lack of legal and industry support and “outright acts of violence and intimidation.”
Advocates say the inability for Black farmers to get a start, and later the sharp drop in farming population, is in part due to what they call USDA’s discriminatory lending practices, and often specific loan officers’ biases. The agency is the subject of an ongoing discrimination class action lawsuit by Black farmers and additional litigation due to those and other allegations.
Much of that history plays into how Black farmers approach the Trump administration.
“The Black row crop farm community needs the support of the administration,” Haynie said. “I can’t … buy an $800,000 combine to sell $4 corn. The math doesn’t math on that.”
All farmers — “Black or white” — are responding to the same depressed prices, he said. But Black farmers, he argues, already a small percentage of total U.S. growers, and often operating at a smaller scale, have less buffer to absorb sudden market shocks.
As farmers look at their projected costs next year, economists say they’re also navigating deep uncertainty in global markets.
“I think that a lot of farmers are still very much looking at the next year with some trepidation, thinking that their margins will continue to be very, very tight,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C.
U.S. trade with China — historically the top buyer of American soybeans and other row crops — has not rebounded to pre–trade war levels despite a new agreement. Meanwhile, Glauber said, countries like Brazil have expanded production dramatically, seizing market share during the trade war and becoming the world’s top soybean exporter — a long-term structural shift that U.S. growers now have to compete against.
Finis Stribling III (left) and John Green II (right) take a break during the National Black Growers Council conference in New Orleans on Dec. 10, 2025. Both Stribling and Green were plagued by bad weather at the start of this year’s growing season, and both said tariffs have only made things harder.
Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
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Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom
He added that crops grown in the Mississippi River Delta, such as cotton and soybeans, have been hit especially hard by low prices and retaliatory tariffs.
Finis Stribling III farms 800 acres of cotton, rice, corn, soybeans and wheat in Arkansas and Tennessee. At the National Black Growers Council’s conference, he told NPR 2025 was another year of what he calls “farming in deficit.”
“We had too much rain early, then drought,” he said. “And when you finally get a crop in the field, the price support isn’t strong enough to cover the cost of production.”
Sitting next to him during a lunch break at the conference, another Arkansas row crop farmer John Lee II, put it bluntly: “What I’m worried about is next year. What do we do in 2026 when we go to the bank to try and get a loan? I’m concerned about the notion of going to the bank this upcoming year and not being able to get a loan because we can’t make the loan cash flow.”
Both also said the new tariff relief will help — but not nearly to the degree many outside agriculture may think.
“From the outside looking in, non-farm community, you say $12 billion seems like a lot of money,” Stribling said. “But when you look at the cost of production and the money that’s spent in agriculture, $12 billion is really just a drop in the bucket. It’s almost like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.
The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”
“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.
Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.
The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.
“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.
Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”
“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”
The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.
While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.
Lionel Messi #10 of Argentina celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during their World Cup match against Egypt in Atlanta on Tuesday.
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They looked beaten. And out. Argentina, the defending World Cup champion and No. 1-ranked team, was down 2-0 late against Egypt.
Then, in a span of 13 remarkable minutes, Argentina scored not once, not twice, but three times, capping a comeback for the ages and leaving Egypt stunned and shellshocked.
For much of the game in Atlanta, Egypt was in control, hobbling Argentina early. The Egyptian attack began almost immediately with a stunning header goal delivered by Yasser Ibrahim in the 15th minute. After that, Egypt’s defense closed ranks, making it practically impossible for Argentina to equalize.
It was downhill from there for the Argentines: team captain Lionel Messi failed to convert a penalty kick, and in the 67th minute, Egypt got a second goal from Mostafa Ziko (after an earlier Egyptian goal had been disallowed after a video review). It looked like Argentina was finished. On the brink of elimination.
But no one told the Argentine players that.
In the 79th minute, Lionel Messi began doing his thing. He fired a cross near the Egyptian goal, and Cristian Romero headed it in. Messi was not done. Four minutes later, he powered a shot past the Egyptian keeper. It was his eighth goal of this tournament, the most of any player. The score was 2-2.
Then, in stoppage time, yet another Argentina header and another goal, this time from Enzo Fernandez.
“This is the World Cup for you,” said Messi after the game. “It wasn’t easy to come back from two goals down. But as I always say, this group never gives up. We always try to fight until the end.”
French referee François Letexier speaks with Egypt forward Mohamed Salah during the World Cup Round of 16 match between Argentina and Egypt in Atlanta.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
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Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
Afterward, Egypt coach Hossam Hassan complained about the French referee and the officiating. “I am not convinced. I am not convinced with this outcome. I’m not convinced with the way things unfolded during this match,” said Hassan in a post-match news conference. “We have been treated unfairly today. We have suffered injustice.”
“We would have deserved to earn this win, but we are leaving with honor, with pride, regardless of this defeat,” said Hossan.
African soccer teams have been the stars of this World Cup. Morocco has yet to lose a game. Cape Verde qualified for the first time in its history and stymied Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia. Argentina barely beat them in a nail-biter of a match.
For Egypt, getting this far in the tournament is historic in itself: it’s the first time the team has made it this far. For Argentina, it was a terrifying yet relieving victory: several players, including Messi himself, cried after the game.
Next, they move to the quarterfinals and will play the winner of today’s Switzerland-Colombia match.
Top Senate Democrats are pushing for answers on whether a provision in a controversial settlement agreement between President Trump and his own administration applies to companies co-founded by or affiliated with the Trump family.
As part of a deal struck in May by the Justice Department to resolve a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, the Internal Revenue Service is permanently barred from pursuing claims against Mr. Trump, his oldest sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization based on prior tax returns.
In a one-page document signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and dated May 19, the Justice Department said the defendants in the president’s lawsuit — the IRS and the Treasury Department — are “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims” arising from tax returns filed before the settlement took effect. Blanche also wrote that the settlement applies to “parties including trusts, parent, sister, or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries.”
Now, Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Ron Wyden of Oregon are pushing 11 businesses and organizations with ties to the Trump family to get answers for the “significant questions” the settlement raises relating to the tax audit provision, and whether the companies are included in the deal.
“Under the guise of a so-called legal settlement, the Trump administration has attempted to decree that the President, his family, and their entire business empire — potentially including entities with even the vaguest ‘affiliation’ to the family — are to face zero consequences if they have committed a range of financial crimes or misdeeds — regardless of the severity of the violation,” the senators wrote in letters transmitted to the companies Monday night.
The letters were sent to mining company Kaz Resources, defense firm Powerus, cryptocurrency companies World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin, robotics startup Foundation Future Industries, investment firm 1789 Capital, private aviation company Tag Air, and prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi.
All of the companies either were founded by Mr. Trump and his two adult sons, or list members of the Trump family as advisers, board members, or partial owners. Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket’s advisory board and 1789 Capital, where he’s a partner, has invested in Polymarket. Days before Mr. Trump took office for his second term, Kalshi also announced Trump Jr. would be a strategic adviser.
The Democrats, who are in the minority, lack subpoena power, so Mr. Trump, his children and his companies can’t be forced to answer the questions posed by the senators.
According to recent financial disclosures, the president earned more than a billion dollars from cryptocurrency ventures alone last year, including from his meme coin business and World Liberty Financial, his family’s cryptocurrency firm.
Separately, the senators also asked the Trump Organization in a separate letter if it believes it has “immunity from all audits, civil penalties or federal prosecution” for any crimes that could have occurred before the settlement.
Trump Media and Technology Group, which is majority owned by a trust that lists Mr. Trump as the sole beneficiary and operates the Truth Social platform he uses daily, also received a letter from the Democratic senators.
“The public deserves transparency about the scope of this get-out-of-jail free card for Trump-aligned businesses, and about whether you intend to rely on this settlement as a free pass for any possible violations of the law,” the senators continued in their letter, which also seeks any communications that executives at the companies have had with the Justice Department and White House leading up to or after the settlement was signed.
The settlement was announced months after Mr. Trump and two of his sons and the Trump Organization accused the IRS and Treasury Department of unlawfully allowing a government contractor to leak tax returns to media outlets in 2020.
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson said “the IRS routinely provides releases as part of resolving taxpayer reviews and audits. This settlement follows that same standard practice.”
The spokesperson did not provide specific information about which companies are covered by the audit provision, or whether the Trump Organization and Trump family are the only entities covered by that addendum.
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