Under presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, American farmers have been whipsawed by retaliatory tariffs, inflated production costs, and rampant market uncertainty. Sadly, both administrations have responded to these self-inflicted pressures not by eliminating the government policies to blame, but by offering more handouts — most recently via U.S. biofuels policy.

Thus, we see the continuation of a predictable cycle: the government causes a problem that it thinks it must solve. Politicians simply shift funds around to obscure their damaging policies, erecting a system of dependence and favoritism in the process.

Last week, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency proposed rules that raise the biomass-based diesel quota and slash credit value for imported feedstocks. These rules effectively steer refiners and fuel importers toward biofuels made from U.S. soybean oil and other domestic crop oils, thereby boosting demand for these crops.

This policy would effectively snuff out cheaper, better foreign suppliers to line the pockets of domestic growers and processors like Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill. The combination of privilege and protectionism portends higher prices for beleaguered consumers and businesses. Further, the policy intentionally obscures the fact that the struggles of American farmers today stem largely from the Trump-Biden trade policy.

American agricultural interests have been severely harmed by the higher costs, uncertainty, and foreign retaliation brought on by U.S. trade wars. Most notably, in 2018, China retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by imposing a 25 percent duty on American soybeans and corn. Exports to soybean farmers’ largest foreign market dropped by 77 percent and never returned to pre-trade-war levels as Chinese importers turned to Brazil and other countries. The Trump administration responded with a $23 billion bailout.

With federal budgets tighter than in 2018, however, throwing even more taxpayer cash directly at U.S. agribusiness could prove politically difficult. Enter the federal Renewable Fuel Standard. Created by a Republican Congress in 2005 and juiced by a Democratic Congress in 2007, the RFS orders refiners to blend rising volumes of renewable fuels into gasoline and diesel. The RFS forces consumers to subsidize whatever fuel Washington favors, although studies have long shown that traditional biofuels are net losers for the environment.

The mandates also mean higher food prices. When the RFS began, corn ethanol quickly captured the conventional share of the mandate, diverting roughly 45 percent of the nation’s corn crop into fuel tanks and lifting consumer prices along the way.

The Trump EPA’s proposed changes to the federal RFS make two big changes to compensate for U.S. agribusiness’s trade war losses. First, the agency increased the mandated biofuel volumes to record levels over the next two years — levels that exceeded the expanded volumes U.S. agribusiness requested. This artificial demand means higher profits for American farmers and biofuels producers, which is why soybean farmers and agribusiness giants openly lobbied for a larger biofuels mandate to offset expected trade war losses.

It seems their wish has been more than granted.

Farm and biofuels lobbyists also want Washington to hobble their foreign competition, and the EPA’s second RFS change meets this demand. Soybean interests have been particularly unhappy with a flood of cheap Chinese used cooking oil encouraged by the RFS and new subsidies in the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The Chinese used cooking oil was cheaper and had a lower carbon footprint than alternatives like soybean oil, making it more attractive to biofuel producers eligible for expanded tax credits under the IRA.

Upset by this competition, Big Soy lobbied vigorously for tariffs and other restrictions. The Biden administration bowed to their demands this January, moving to make imported used cooking oil ineligible for the IRA’s tax credit. Now, the Trump EPA has picked up the baton to hobble imports further. The agency has proposed giving foreign-produced biofuels and feedstocks only 50 percent of the Renewable Identification Number value that domestic counterparts receive, further tilting the scale for American-grown products like soybean oil and ethanol.

Using garbage grease rather than virgin vegetable oil and reducing emissions along the way should have been a big win for U.S. biofuels policy and the EPA. But since the situation upset farmers weary of the trade war and big U.S. agribusiness interests, both Democratic and Republican administrations have worked hard to stop it.

The result is not just costlier, less effective biofuels, but also higher food prices. Upon publication of the EPA’s proposal, soybean and soybean oil futures surged, and agribusiness analysts expect prices to remain high for the foreseeable future. Shares of large agribusiness corporations also surged on the news.

That’s great for Big Ag interests (and the politicians who represent them), but American consumers and the broader economy will bear the cost. Higher prices will inevitably ripple outward: restaurants will pay more for cooking oil, and, ultimately, families will pay more for groceries. Diesel users — think truckers, delivery services, and farmers — will also face higher prices.

By papering over tariff-induced farm losses with a bigger mandate and more protectionism, the EPA’s proposal is just more of the same. Farmers would be better off with open markets and healthy competition, not an endless cycle of tariffs, subsidies, and regulatory handouts. With both political parties in on the con, however, consumers will likely be left holding the tab once again.