By Jeff Stein The Washington Post Jan 11, 2019 Updated Jun 24, 2019
U.S. taxpayers will buy about $5 million in pork products from a Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm under President Donald Trump’s bailout program, which was designed to help American farmers hurt by the administration’s trade war, according to documents released this week.
JBS, one of the biggest meatpacking companies in the world, will sell 1.8 million pounds of pork products through a Trump bailout program that buys surplus commodities from farmers and ranchers, say records published by the Agricultural Marketing Service, a branch of the Agriculture Department.
The administration has pitched its $12 billion bailout program as necessary to help farmers weather the long-running trade war with China, but critics have questioned whether funding will also enrich large and foreign-owned firms.
The bulk of the program consists of direct cash payments to farmers hurt by the downturn, although those payments have stalled amid the partial government shutdown. Agriculture Department officials announced Tuesday that they are extending the deadline for applying for aid under this program by several weeks at a minimum.
More:
https://theindependent.com/news/local/trump-farm-bailout-money-will-go-to-jbs-a-brazilian-owned-meatpacking-firm-usda-says/article_564eeae0-15bc-11e9-b11a-6713c6c737f9.html
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Trump Administration Farmers Bailout Money Went to Corrupt Brazilian Brothers Who Bribed Officials
BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 5/16/19 AT 10:32 AM EDT
The Trump administration granted around $62 million in financial assistance to a meatpacking company owned by Brazilian brothers guilty of bribing hundreds of officials in Brazil, according to a new report.
The Department of Agriculture aid went to bail out JBS USA, a Colorado-based subsidiary of a Brazilian meatpacking company owned by Joesley and Wesley Batista. The money came from a $12 billion program that the Trump administration created to help U.S. farmers struggling as Trump's trade war with China escalates, according to documents obtained by the New York Daily News.
The two brothers were arrested for the first time in 2017 and accused of insider trading. Brazilian police arrested Joesley Batista again in 2018 as part of an ongoing investigation into illegal campaign contributions. Both brothers have confessed to bribing high-level officials in Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture. The bribery scheme reached as high up as former President Michel Temer.
Last year, Brazil voted in a new president, Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right figure who ran largely on an anti-corruption message.
More:
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-farmers-bailout-brazil-brothers-1427346
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