Trump Plans to Ease Environmental Rules to Lower Tractor Prices for Farmers

The president blames excessive environmental restrictions for driving up farming machinery costs.

Workers from Pinicon Farm harvest corn near McIntire, Iowa, on Oct. 31, 2023. Scott Olson/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is urging tractor manufacturers to lower prices, as his administration unveils a $12 billion relief package for farmers.

At a White House roundtable on Dec. 8, Trump pledged to loosen environmental regulations on farming equipment companies such as John Deere in an effort to keep machinery costs down.

“We’re going to also give the tractor companies, John Deere and all of the companies that make the equipment, we’re going to take off a lot of the environmental restrictions that they have on machinery,” he said.

“They’re going to have to reduce their prices because farming equipment has gotten too expensive, and a lot of the reason is because they put these environmental excesses on the equipment, which don’t do a damn thing except make it complicated.”

The roundtable included congressional agriculture leaders and farmers from across the country. Trump announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would distribute $12 billion in one-time payments intended to support farmers through a difficult year, until the effects of his broader economic policies, including tax cuts and new tariffs, take hold.

Prices for major row crops such as corn and soybeans have fallen in recent years, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, while input costs have continued to rise. The U.S.–China trade war also contributed to financial strain: China halted purchases of U.S. soybeans for several months and instead turned to Brazil, cutting American growers off from their largest export market.

Up to $11 billion of the aid package will go toward the USDA’s new Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, which will provide targeted payments to producers affected by market disruptions, elevated input costs, persistent inflation, and losses from foreign competitors engaging in unfair trade practices that impede U.S. exports, the department said.

The remaining $1 billion will be directed to crops not covered under the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, including specialty crops and sugar. The USDA said final determinations will be based on market conditions.

Trump said the funds would come from tariff revenue collected by the United States over the past year. The payments will be issued through the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, the same agency Trump used to hand out farm aid during his first term.

John Deere, the largest agricultural machinery company in the world, praised the relief package and said it is ready to work with the Trump administration to advance its agricultural goals.

“John Deere shares the Administration’s focus on reducing costs for our nation’s agricultural producers and consumers,” the company said in a statement on social media. “We are doing all we can to help U.S. farmers reduce input costs.”