Rural farmers across the United States are now speaking out in frustration, saying the same policies they once voted for are driving them toward bankruptcy.
After years of enduring high costs and low crop prices, many now say they feel abandoned by the very leader they helped elect.
“We’re selling our commodities at the same price that our grandparents were selling them for in the ’70s,” said Tennessee cotton and soybean farmer Jeffrey Daniels.
“What can you buy today that costs the same as it did in the ’70s? Nothing.”
Daniels and longtime friend Franklin Carmack, both fifth-generation farmers, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” they expect to lose nearly $800,000 this year.
To cope, they started selling T-shirts made from their own cotton. At $35 each, they barely made a dent in their losses.
They blamed much of their financial stress on tariffs and inflation.
“Every time we go buy something now… anything that comes from China that’s on that sprayer, there’s a tariff and they’re just going to pass it directly to us,”
Since China stopped buying U.S. soybeans in May as retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, many farmers lost access to their largest export market.
Meanwhile, input costs, seed, fertilizer, equipment, have risen by more than 30 percent in five years.
A New Bailout, But Few Are Cheering
President Donald Trump promised another $13 billion in aid, saying:
“We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made. We’re going to give it to our farmers who are for a little while going to be hurt until it kicks in.”
But Carmack said government help doesn’t fix the root issues: “It will help pay some bills, but that’s not fixing the problem. A Band-Aid when we need stitches.”
Mental Health Crisis Deepens in Farm Country
Beyond the economic fallout, the emotional toll is also rising.
Carmack said he now takes four blood pressure pills a day. “Four blood pressure pills a day. Three different medicines. Two years ago, none,” he said.
Farm suicide rates are now three times higher than the national average, according to the CDC.
Jolie Foreman, who runs Shelby County Cares in Missouri, said, “Back in ’22, it was averaging out to about a life every three months.” Her group works to connect isolated farmers to therapists and support groups.
Support Turning Into Disillusionment
Nearly 80 percent of voters in farm-dependent counties supported Trump in the last election. But many now say they feel let down.
David Pakman, host of The David Pakman Show, commenting on the “60 Minutes” segment, said, “You voted for the tariff guy. The tariff guy did the tariffs, and now all of a sudden you’re shocked that the tariff guy is tariffing you into insolvency.”
He described the situation as a kind of political self-harm, saying, “Trump hurts them, they run back, he hurts them again, and on the fourth punch, they go, ‘Wait a second. You’re hurting me.'”
Pakman also pointed to what he sees as a wider contradiction: “The billionaire tax dodger from Manhattan and Queens is wiping out a group that still believed he cared about them.”
“You can’t really outpromise Trump’s fantasy economics. You can’t out-lie a guy who says money grows on tariffs.”
He added, “Trump hurts them, they run back, he hurts them again, and on the fourth punch, they go, ‘Wait a second. You’re hurting me.'”
When asked what he would show President Trump if he came to visit, Carmack said, “Come to the farm. Come walk in my shoes. I’d show him the daily life… and then I’d hand him a stack of bills. And then I would show him the receipts, what I’m getting from my crop. And he’s a smart man… it won’t take him five minutes to say, ‘This isn’t going to work.'”
Anger grew even deeper this fall after the White House approved a $40 billion bailout for Argentina, a major competitor in the soybean market. During the trade war, China bought soybeans from Argentina instead of the U.S.
“I’m about ready to lose my farm,” one man said at a town hall. “I am pissed and I’m pissed at you.”
As farmers stare down another year of uncertainty, many are beginning to question whether loyalty to Trump has cost them everything.
“Farm families can’t wait,” Carmack said.
Some farmers say they feel politically abandoned, unsure of who, if anyone, is really fighting for their survival. Others fear it may already be too late to save what generations before them built.