By admin 
President Donald Trump announced another round of election-season giveaways — or, as he called them, “some more goodies” — at his Kansas campaign rally for Sen. Roger Marshall on Monday as he attempts to keep Republican control of Congress to finish out his second term.
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“You know, I always heard that when you’re president, you have a little bit of an advantage,” Trump said. “And I sort of see why now, actually. I sort of see why.”
Beyond a continued promise to give every adult citizen of the United States $5,000 if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in the November election, a move that would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, Trump offered an additional one-time payment to farmers.
“Tonight, I’m also pleased to announce that the Department of Agriculture will be launching a new Harvest Fuel Relief Program providing our farmers with $8 billion in support to offset diesel costs during this harvest season,” Trump said. “And Roger Marshall is the leader who fought for that to happen.
“Roger got it to happen, and when Republicans win, we will pass even more funding for our farmers,” Trump continued. “We love our farmers.”
Fuel prices, especially diesel, have skyrocketed since Trump’s decision to start a war with Iran in late February, jumping from about $3.70 a gallon before the war to about $6.23 a gallon during the peak of the harvest season. The economic anxiety faced by farmers has turned agricultural states that have typically been Republican strongholds into more competitive races in the 2026 midterms.
The new USDA program, called the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, “will provide simple, proportional support to producers using a uniform formula to cover a portion of modeled losses during the 2026 crop year,” according to a news release issued by the USDA shortly after Trump’s speech.
The payment rates won’t be released until November, the release says. The application period has not yet been announced, and neither Trump nor the USDA said when the payments would be made.
The USDA is also crowdsourcing data related to increased fuel costs for producers of non-Title I commodities, such as special crop growers and fishermen, and asks for those producers to provide data on fuel costs to [email protected] “for USDA’s consideration when determining payment rates.”
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It’s not clear how the Trump administration chose the $8 billion figure. Some industry data suggests diesel price spikes during the planting season alone — before diesel prices reached their peak — increased costs for farmers by $1.4 billion — including by more than $83.2 million in Kansas, an 84% increase in planting fuel costs from the previous year. The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates diesel price surges in the fall cost farmers an additional $2 to $58 an acre, depending on the crop.
While that may not seem like a large number, Kansas has nearly 30 million acres of cropland, with the average farm over 800 acres. An extra $2 an acre, the estimated cost for winter wheat planting, would cost the average farmer an additional $1,600, while harvesting corn would bring that up to $8 an acre or an additional $6,400 a farm.
Midterm payment announcements
This is not the first payment the Trump administration has rolled out ahead of the midterms.
In September, he announced the $5,000 “Trump Dividend” checks at a midterm Republican convention in Dallas. That month, he sent out one-time $500 Obamacare “refund” checks to nearly a million Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act along with a letter carrying his signature that claimed those receiving the money were overcharged for health insurance under President Biden’s administration.
In October, he announced a $90 one-time payment to more than 20 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part B to offset insurance premiums.
The payments have not seemed to broadly change public sentiment, as Trump’s approval rating has continued to dip to record lows of 31% to 33% in October, according to polls by Reuters/Ipsos and the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos. Trump’s unpopularity has spread to some of the Senate races, where states like Kansas, Iowa, Alaska, Texas and Maine appear to be in play.
In Kansas, Marshall faces a challenge from United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton, a Democrat who has hammered Marshall over the cost of fuel and his support of the Iran war in campaign ads. Hamilton has proposed a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax (about 18.4 cents a gallon) and federal diesel tax (about 24.4 cents a gallon) until the Iran conflict ends, a move that would likely result in billions of dollars in lost revenue for federal highway and mass transit projects.
This story was originally published October 19, 2026 at 9:58 PM with the headline “Trump announces ‘more goodies’: $8 billion to offset fuel costs for farmers.”
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