This Politico piece with 4 reporters on it,  is very good on the reaction and on the longer term plotting by Trump:

Trump to offer farmers $12B in trade aid

By Catherine Boudreau, Adam Besudi, Helena Bottemiller Evich and Megan Cassella, Updated 07/24/2018 01:32 PM EDT

[....] Trump this week is touring Midwestern farm states like Missouri, Illinois and Iowa, where he will likely get inundated with questions about his trade agenda, which has been rebuked by a number of U.S. industries, including the agricultural sector and the business community in general, along with many members of Congress.

The president’s interest in reassuring an anxious farm sector was evident on Monday when he gave a shout-out to farmers during an event at the White House while unveiling new campaign-style hats that say, “Make Our Farmers Great Again.”

“Make our farmers great again. That’s what’s happening,” Trump said, as he showed off one of the green hats with yellow lettering — a color scheme resembling that used by tractor maker John Deere. Trump said he just had the new hats made.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a vocal critic of Trump on trade, blasted the tariff aid as a way of giving farmers "gold crutches" and warned that the current direction of U.S. trade policy could lead to economic circumstances similar to the Great Depression era.

“America’s farmers don’t want to be paid to lose — they want to win by feeding the world,” Sasse said in a statement. “This administration’s tariffs and bailouts aren’t going to make America great again — they’re just going to make it 1929 again.”

Trump, back in April, directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to devise a plan to mitigate any financial damage to U.S. agricultural producers’ bottom lines that could result from ongoing trade battles. But the administration has offered few details on the amount of aid that would be provided and how it would be distributed.

As recently as last month, Perdue said it was premature to determine whether his agency needed to provide farmers with subsidies to offset trade losses because it was too soon to gauge the effects of retaliatory tariffs on farmers. Perdue was spotted wearing a “Make Our Farmers Great Again” hat.

Farmers and the majority of farm-state lawmakers have previously appeared to be lukewarm on the idea of the government doling out aid to offset losses due to tariffs and drops in the market. Many have told POLITICO they would prefer the Trump administration to expand access to foreign markets, rather than start spats with trading partners that lead them to erect barriers on U.S. exports, restrict access and seek out other sources of supply.

"The best relief for the president’s trade war would be ending the trade war," Brian Kuehl, executive director of the advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade, said in a statement Tuesday. He said farmers need trade policies that promote stability and allow them to plan for the future [....]

 

Farm groups go on anti-tariff blitz after Trump offers trade aid

By Adam Behsudi @ Politico.com, 07/26/2018 05:57 AM EDT

Farm groups are going on the offensive with a multimillion-dollar advertising and advocacy campaign against President Donald Trump’s tariffs just days after the administration rolled out a $12 billion bailout for farmers harmed by a mounting trade war [....]

“Agriculture is a giant, and it takes awhile to wake it up, but when it wakes up you better watch out,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, which is organizing the campaign.

The nonprofit group, which is backed by the American Farm Bureau Federation and major commodity groups like the National Pork Producers Council, is investing $2.5 million in the four-month campaign aimed at showcasing how the tariffs are causing pain among U.S. farmers and manufacturers because of Trump’s trade policies.

The centerpiece of the campaign is an advertisement set to run on Fox News, CNBC and CNN and in local television and radio markets in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The ad calls out a July 19 remark by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in which he called the impact of tariffs a “rounding error.”

“America’s farmers and factory workers are not a rounding error,” the ad says.

The organization will also deploy digital and print advertising as well as town hall events starting during the August congressional recess to get the attention of lawmakers back in their home states and districts [....]