President Donald Trump of the United States of America (USA) has announced a $19-billion-dollar aid package for U.S. farmers. The president made the announcement on Friday April 17, in a bid to shore up the U.S. food supply chain.
“The programme will include direct payments to farmers as well as mass purchases of dairy, meat and agricultural produce to get that food to the people in need,” Trump said during his daily news conference. Agriculture Secretary, Sonny Perdue said 16 billion dollars in direct payments will be made to farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase 3 billion dollars in goods. The money for the relief has already been allocated by Congress in previous aid legislation.
The USA is one of the worst hit countries in the world since the outbreak of the pandemic, which started in Wuhan, China. Although China tried to hide the disease from the rest of the world, they eventually accepted when COVID-19 was killing thousands of Chinese even though the Chinese authorities kept under-reporting their deaths. Italy, Spain are also badly hit with increasing number of deaths reported on a daily basis.
