What most people are missing with regard to the farm "subsidies" or as most of us put it...

[Prairie Gates]

3. They're going to do some emergency stopgap for this year

Basically, they have a few weeks left for the harvest. The MAGAs are betting everything on Bessent getting some temporary reprieve in the China negotiations going on now (i.e., they agree to purchase some portion of the soybean crop). If that doesn't happen they will need a 2025 stopgap bailout for soybean farmers. The structured subsidies will start next year because they also know that China has definitively switched a significant percentage of its purchasing to Brazil, and it's pretty much not coming back, so the MAGAs need time to try t locate some alternative market. If they can subsidize through 2026, they assume they can strongarm some other entity into buying the crop.

What's pretty clear now is that China found the right lever point, and that the US was far more sensitive to China imports of US goods (to wit, soy beans, pork, etc.) than the Trumpies would have us believe. They've got Trumpy over a bushel, so to speak.