On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced his administration is providing a $12 billion dollar emergency aid to relieve farmers affected by the escalating trade disputes with China.
Farmers in the heartland said years of hard work are ruined and long-term problems are on the horizon
US Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., has been taking a stance for farmers across the country saying the trade war cause by tariffs is always a loss for both the United States and China.
"This trade war is causing lots and lots of problems, it's not fixing problems," Sasse said.
Trump is trying to make up for the farmers' losses across the country in what some say is a way to mitigate the problems that come with a trade war.
"At this point now, we're not seeing an end to this, this is not going to be short-term," Elkhorn, Nebraska farmer Bill Armbrust said. "This is going to be lasting longer and longer and we've also done a tremendous amount of damage to our markets that, again, we've been working on for decades to develop."
The biggest problem for farmers is the uncertainty of the future. The likelihood of not making any profit is becoming a reality in Nebraska.
"Bean prices are well under eight dollars right now," Sasse said. "And there's a lot of people in my state that their cost of production is well over eight dollars, so when they get to harvest this fall they're looking at selling a crop for less than their inputs, let alone taking care of their kids."
"For farmers, we plan year-to-year," Armbrust said. "We put plans down for five years, ten years down the road, and what we're looking at right now is probably a large drag on the market for the next five years."
