Local farmer, Congresswoman Julia Letlow react to Trump farming aid program

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - Local Rice farmer Meryl Kennedy is back home from her trip to the White House.

She met with President Donald Trump on his recently announced Farmer Bridge Assistance Program.

Kennedy says she is pleased with the President’s plan during what she calls a “tough” time for farmers.

“This payment will make a substantial difference just to get the lenders back in, back to the table with our farmers to make sure that we can grow a crop next year,” Kennedy said. Congresswoman Julia Letlow says farmers need this relief and wants to make sure they are not negatively affected by tariffs.

“It’s one thing to have free trade, but we also need to have fair trading practices, and we don’t need our farmers to be hurt by any of those tariffs,” Letlow said. “So, I’m really grateful that the administration is going to use some of those funds to help our farmers out until he gets all of the trade negotiations complete.”

Kennedy believes that competition from foreign markets is one of the biggest issues farmers face and that tariffs are helping. However, she did give President Trump some advice.

“I believe that we really need to double down on tariffs, like I told the president, and we need to make them a universal tariff, not just on one country, because it doesn’t help to have a tariff on one country when you can import from other countries, right?,” Kennedy said. “I mean, these are global companies. They have products all over the world.”

The aid is set to be distributed in February. For more information, you can visit the USDA website.