Trump Today: Trump teases more aid to American farmers as China halts buying U.S. products

President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday he would give more aid to American farmers as the trade spat with China continued, and told his Twitter followers his administration is watching Google “very closely” over election interference. Read More...

FARM AID

With the U.S. and China mired in a trade brawl, Trump said on Twitter that American farmers “know that China will not be able to hurt them in that their President has stood with them and done what no other president would do.”

Making an election-year pledge, the president added, “And I’ll do it again next year if necessary!”

Trump’s tweet came after China said it would suspend all imports of U.S. agricultural goods, a move that the head of the American Farm Bureau Federation called a “body blow” to American farmers and ranchers. The administration has taken steps to help farmers hurt by the trade fight. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week began signing up farmers for a program that will disperse about $14.5 billion to U.S. farmers, following a roughly $10 billion program last year. Farmers, writes the Journal, say the government payments will help, but likely won’t make them whole.

U.S. stocks DJIA, +0.41% bounced modestly higher on Tuesday after trade tensions inspired their worst day of the year on Monday.

Now read: How the U.S.-China trade war started, and what’s coming next.

WATCHING GOOGLE

In a series of tweets Trump said “We are watching Google very closely!” after casting doubt on assertions he said were made in the Oval Office by the tech giant’s GOOG, +1.40% GOOGL, +1.32% Chief Executive Sundar Pichai. Trump said comments by Pichai — including “that they are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite all that has been said to the contrary” — sounded good until the president heard separate comments by Kevin Cernekee, who says he was fired by the tech giant last year for being an outspoken conservative.

Cernekee was the subject of a Wall Street Journal story earlier this month, and a Google spokeswoman said in a statement that the company’s workplace policies are enforced “without regard to political viewpoint.”

It was Trump’s latest swipe at Google. The president in July said his administration would “take a look” at allegations made by venture capitalist and Facebook FB, +1.05% board member Peter Thiel that Google has been infiltrated by the Chinese government. A Google spokeswoman told MarketWatch at the time that the company does not work with the Chinese military.

Google has said it is not politically biased and does not censor conservatives’ speech.

Also see: Big Tech antagonist Hawley has a bill to stop ‘social media addiction.’