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Tommy Grisafi is the main host and content creator for Ag Bull Media.
The Ag Bull Podcast showcases agriculture's top talents in a long-form video format. The Ag Bull Trading Podcast is a deeper discussion of trading with analysts and key players in agriculture nationwide.
Futures trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.
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Wiesemeyer's Perspectives | Venezuela Shock, Markets On Edge
A U.S. move in Venezuela reshapes energy flows, raises the global risk premium, and sends clear signals to Cuba, China, and Russia, while a tightening U.S. cattle supply collides with screw-worm containment and no fixed border reopening timeline. Farmers get bridge payments based on modeled losses, with larger per-acre support where multi-year margins bled the most.
• Why Venezuelan heavy crude and Gulf refining capacity matter
• How gold reserves, oil grades, and risk premiums shift pricing
• Signals to Cuba, China, and Russia from the policy pivot
• Screw-worm cases nearing Texas and biosecurity benchmarks
• Cattle supply cuts, packer strain, and beef price pressure
• Farm Bridge per-acre rates and eligibility limits
• Why rice, cotton, and peanuts score higher support
• State-level payout concentration and timing to February
• ARC/PLC expectations later this year and cash flow planning
• Using odd signals like the Pizza Indicator to manage risk
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Thank you, Tommy G
Happy New Year, everyone. Tom Gersafi, Ag Bowl Media, Ag Bull Trading. Whew. Welcome to the first full week of 2026. And oh boy, do we have a show for you. It is Sunday afternoon. And upon you watching this, the markets will be open. I think we'll have some flyers. I think you'll see gold and silver move. A little interested to see what crude oil does. Some people say it'll be up, some people say it'll be down. May have volatility pickup. We may have bonds move because it was a weekend of interest. We're going to start with Venezuela, talk about farm payments, and then move over to Screwworm as Cattle had a big update on Friday. Who's the man who's going to help us with that? Mr. Weissmeyer, Jim Weissmeyer. You're watching Weissmeyer's Perspectives only on the Ag Bull platform.
SPEAKER_00:Happy New Year to you. It didn't take long for 2026 to have a major news development, did it? Well, what happened? Did we have news over the weekend? We did. About three in the morning Eastern time, I started getting a lot of flashes on my phone, and I could hear them. And we went into, I should say, the Trump administration went into Venezuela to get Maduro, their leader. And now he's he's in New York. I guess Brooklyn, yeah, Brooklyn, New York, and contained and uh major market implications, as you said in the opening, Tommy, we're gonna know. But there'll be a long uh additional implications of this that we'll go through because this is a fundamental change in U.S. policy. This is the Trump corollary of the Monroe doctrine. Don't fool in our hemisphere. So this is this will have appendages. It could have follow through on Cuba because Cuba got a lot of their support from Venezuela, and China's gonna get the signal. Now they're gonna continue to be able to buy Venezuelan oil, but it's gonna go into the coffers short term under U.S. control, and that's gonna help the Venezuelan citizens now much more than it did before. And eventually, if it continues, it will help reconstruct that battered country, and it's gonna take years, years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we have a lot to talk about that subject. Professor Weesmeyer, I wasn't quite sure. If you asked me on Saturday, point on the map where Venezuela was, I would have been off by about 500 miles. Let's educate people why this region is so important.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness. And this is why I don't I wonder if they even teach geography in school anymore. I remember when I was growing up, we did. We had to go in front of the class and pick out certain countries and things like that and outline them. And you got to learn where countries were around the world, Tommy. But look at look at the uh water around Venezuela. It's very north, isn't it? Yeah. And that shows you how we can have an oil embargo of ships coming in and out if we want to. And so we the U.S. spent a number of months getting ready for this situation. And I don't think one American soldier got killed.
SPEAKER_01:I know that's a couple hurt right now, couple hurt, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. But all in all, a very impressive operation. But now the hard parts come in. What do you do? Leadership vacuum, the vice president right now, Rodriguez, uh Darcy is uh is the acting uh acting head of Venezuela. Although Trump said he will run the country short term, I don't really think that's going to be the case. They'll try to get the the leadership that was there before thinking a different way in order to run it, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:So let's uh I have some headlines that you put up. I think we just kind of talked about this, correct? Sure. Okay. And the setup?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the Venezuela escalation hit the market at a fragile point. Uh you know, we've got tariffs feeding into U.S. prices and cost, and so inflation risk could tilt higher even as growth concerns linger if we have a run-up in oil prices. But as you said, in in my talks with different analysts, they're all over the map on how this will be both short-term and long term. But the market by bias is going to shift, Tommy, to real assets, volatility, and hedges. Volatility is your key there because we have risk premium returning, you know, because of you know, Venezuelan. They they had uh about 1 million barrels a day. That's uh right around 1% of the global supply. But their reserves, Tommy, 303 billion barrels of oil. They they 17 to 18 percent of oil reserves. Now, of course, that's what Trump was saying.
SPEAKER_01:303 billion.
SPEAKER_00:303 billion, about 17 of all, they're number one, number one in the world. And uh now their that their oil is heavy sour barrels, and that's hard to replace. And I think you you were mentioning before we came on that that's gonna need refiners help, the the Gulf refiners, absolutely that I think you said Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico.
SPEAKER_01:America has the uh refining capacity. Now, what I think the play is, Jim, is that we get a lot of our heavy crude here in the United States from Canada, and this could really put pressure on heavy Canadian crude. When you look at the crude markets, you have your standard crude, but there's all different grades that trade a lot cheaper than what we trade a crude oil futures for, depending on the amount of processing it needs. One thing I didn't know about Venezuela, but I do now, they used to be way more sophisticated. Look at this bottom line, they have gone terribly backwards here from what they used to produce, peak production.
SPEAKER_00:It shows you what a dictator will do in a non you know in a non-democratic country. And he they literally raped that country. There used to last a lot to be tourism there. I remember when it was a tourist spot because you can see around that water on on the northern uh you know parts. So, yeah, it's it's gonna take years, however, that's the big risk. But Trump's a risk taker, and it this is a multi-dimensional chess game. And I think you got a little chess graphic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I found this one. This is a real beauty. It's amazing what you can buy for$25. We're gonna play this one a lot the next few weeks, but this little chess game of America, and it's not like it's America against Venezuela. I mean, who's left over there, right?
SPEAKER_00:By their citizens, actually, for democracy, when when you really think about it, and because over the last few years, seven million people, Tommy, have left Venezuela because it was so horrible. And that put pressure on yeah, that put pressure on other other Latin American countries, Colombia, etc., and uh including the US. So maybe some of those people will come back, but again, Trump knows that it's gonna take billions of dollars, and that's why it's the oil. Now, when they were a better run country, U.S. oil companies, Chevron, Exxon, etc., were over there big time, and that's when they nationalized the the oil industry, actually, the pre-runner to to their their ousted uh president Chavez. And so American companies lost a lot of money. Trump is signaling to them, okay, if you want to get some of those entities back or have more control of it, you have to invest in the oil industry. That means infrastructure, Tommy. That takes years. So don't think they're gonna go from one million barrels a day to two million barrels a day overnight uh over the next year. We've seen that wasn't the case in Libya, that wasn't handled correctly, but this is in our hemisphere. So I think you've got the best of the Trump people looking at what's it gonna take to resurrect this country from a strategic point of view. And as I said before, the chess game is is a is a good moniker for this because this is going to clearly send a signal to Cuba. Marco Rubiel, our Secretary of State, said if you're in Cuba and you work for the government, you ought to be afraid.
SPEAKER_01:You're on notice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And it it sends a signal, look at to Putin, because the eventually that's going to be a competitor to uh Russian oil in the in the future. China, as Trump said, they can keep buying Venezuelan oil because that'll be income generating for the quote new Venezuela.
SPEAKER_01:Didn't he say he wanted it paid American dollars though? I believe I read that.
SPEAKER_00:That I don't know, but maybe uh that you know that wouldn't surprise me.
SPEAKER_01:Let me give you one other fun fact since we just threw this show together a little late this morning. I'm gonna read this off the interweb. You can check my math. Venezuela holds significant gold reserves with its central bank reporting around 161 metric tons as of uh mid-2024, making it the Latin American company with the country with the most gold reserves. So I found that interesting. Now gold hit record, record highs just a few days ago. That's a lot of money in gold, they have a lot of money in oil. And I did Google some other things like do they have cattle? Yes, they have cattle in buffalo, and but they use it within them within their own country. Obviously, the country's been it's went backwards, not forwards. Yeah, and so they have a lot of potential. Yes, it's a big chunk of land with all that water. I I learned a lot this weekend, and working with you on the show helped me uh learn more. Let's continue on here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you mentioned the gold. Eventually, that'll that'll be able to be tapped for the reconstruction. So look around the world. I love to connect dots. Look what's happening in Gaza. Eventually, that's gonna have to be reconstructed. Look at Ukraine, eventually that's gonna have to be reconstructed. Venezuela, the same thing. Look at the kind of bullish, just bullish construction for infrastructure. Look at your cranes. Oh my goodness, the crane business and and and all that. I'm telling you, this is the ingredients if it goes well. Now, there's different scenarios that you can paint on this, but the investment and reinvestment in these major areas of the world could be the trigger for some pretty good uh redevelopment and improvements around the world, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think we tapped on this energy risk premium returns. Although crude oil may go down, there's just it's we're really putting an interesting spin to uh China. China buys a lot of oil from Venezuela. All right, here we go. More political than market moving. I think in this point, you're meaning like you don't think it's gonna collapse the stock market or anything, it's a political thing that happened, correct, Jim? On what? Oh, did you see this headline?
SPEAKER_00:No, let me see. That's okay.
SPEAKER_01:Venezuela more political than market moving.
SPEAKER_00:That is true. It's more political short term than market moving because of the dynamics which we've said, it's gonna take a while, and there's more questions than answers right now. But that equals that shouts out volatility. But uh it's it's it's it's it's political for sure, but it shows you how Trump is clearly signaling to the world. What did I tell you for over a year? He tried to convince Maduro to leave and he didn't. And uh so he did.
SPEAKER_01:Here's a picture of it right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's where that's what he's that's what he suffers in that Nike. That Nike outfit he's wearing.
SPEAKER_01:I bet you sports something like that on the weekends. I can't you know that outfit sold out within a half hour. Really? I kind of like it. Nike was a big beneficiary of this weekend's uh dealings.
SPEAKER_00:But but again, I cannot overestimate the uh the foreign policy signals that gives that this gives. Look at uh China, look at uh Putin. Putin was a was a giver to uh Maduro, and so this is not making Putin very happy, I can tell you that. But again, sends a clear Trump signal to our adversaries. You better believe the you the might of the U.S. Now I know in Congress is coming back this week, the Senate tomorrow, Monday, and the House on Tuesday. That you we've already seen the different approaches, it's been very partisan as usual. Although some Democrats say that they definitely was against uh the leader of Venezuela, they just don't like the tactics. That's kind of on the Democratic side, but and they're they're upset that they weren't told in advance. But Rubio and Trump both said that that would have leaked. Oh, they can't be trusted. Yeah, can't be trusted.
SPEAKER_01:Did you see what Joe Biden said four or five years ago? How he was saying, did you this so after the invasion, how people find this on Twitter is amazing. But there's a tweet for everything, they always say there's a Trump tweet for everything. Well, here's a Biden tweet, and usually it's Trump who's tweets something silly and then comes back five years later. This tweet says Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Madura. As president, I will stand with Venezuelan people and for democracy. Did Joe Biden stand with Venezuelan people and democracy? Didn't you just tell me eight million people left?
SPEAKER_00:Seven million or more of the people left that country. Yeah, it's not both Obama and and I'm not being political here. This just are facts. Both Obama and Biden maybe talked a foreign policy game, but it was a game. They they didn't follow through. That's that's just period. But this is our hemisphere, and this is what Trump's saying. Don't you dare. But I think they're by the the the clock is ticking again on Cuba. Look at 90 miles from our from our coast in Florida. That's that's a domino. There, there's your aspect. Domino's are gonna fall, beginning with Cuba. The interesting one, Tommy, is uh Mexico, because a lot of cartels and drugs and that are in Mexico, and Trump has already had some uh words about uh Mexico could be next, etc. That uh might be a little hyperbole, but I would watch in the press speech.
SPEAKER_01:I heard that, yeah. Yeah, and uh obviously Colombia with the drugs, Mexico. Now, what I thought when I heard him talk about Mexico, but there have been a big buyer of corn, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if grains were lower again tonight on just not liking this feeling of okay, Mexico buys corn from us, and a lot of ham, a lot of uh a lot of American hams, yeah, absolutely. And China just started buying beans. Does this force China to buy more beans from us and play nice, or does this totally put a wedge between uh United States and China? What happened this weekend, Jim?
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't think it will. I think China and the U.S. will still continue their truce, but we're gonna have to uh watch actions, not just words. We're gonna have to watch actions. But I also wanted to point out on Venezuela, this is a significant development for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, because his whole career has been directed at Cuba and Venezuela to free those countries up. So he has a lot riding on this, and so his esteem. Now, the Democrats don't like it because they thought that he's deceived them in saying that this was not you know country building and things like that. But his star is risen, and depending on how this works out, he's gonna be formidable for us in the years ahead, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I have a nice picture from the war room. This is from Marlago. You see uh Mark Marco Rubio there, obviously, President Trump Rubio again, Peter. How do you say it? Hegseth. And who's the man on the top right picture between Trump and Peter? It's a little hard to see. Is that okay? Yeah, Peter's on the left. I don't know who the main pointing the finger is. Yeah, yeah, that's Peter. That might be the general or something, but it's all cane. I don't know whether that's it's all in Mar Lago, and uh they set this up and they were watching it.
SPEAKER_00:And it was just like a show, Trump said. They walk as it they watched the whole thing as it went down.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and yeah, that's real quick on the there's a pizza indicator. I don't know if you're familiar with it, I'm sure you are, but when something's going on around the Pentagon, the Pentagon Pizza Indicator, are you familiar with that, Jim?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Also, also, they don't like the vice president and the president to meet together to go over plans. So what happened is they met, they met on on the sly because they didn't want us uh have them both together at the same time. So they had conference calls, etc. So JD Vance, I don't think he was in that picture, was he? No.
SPEAKER_01:No, but I did say to my wife Friday before I went to bed, I said something big is going down. And she goes, How do you know that? I said the uh Dom the pizza indicator, there's a uh Twitter account that posts pizzas being delivered from local pizza places around the Pentagon. It went five X as busy as normal. Oh wow uh 10 at night Friday night. And so the the I will monitor that now. I uh while while you're talking and finishing up, I'm going to pull up a picture of it. And I literally said to her before bed, I go, something big's going down. She goes, Why? I go with the pizza indicator's going nuts. She goes, Well, what's that have to do with anything? And I said, one of the few items you can get when you have to work through the night in DC is pizza. Yes, and so when they ask everyone to come into the Pentagon and work, they order hundreds and hundreds of pizzas from local places, and there's someone who tracks it. I will actually get the chart and a picture's worth a thousand words, but on your notes, the last thing you want to say is why Venezuela matters. And then, of course, we have commodities golden dollar. We covered that. But Jim, why does Venezuela matter?
SPEAKER_00:It's in our hemisphere. Two, it shows you uh the the redevelopment potential of a potential uh positive for the citizens of you know uh of uh uh uh Venezuela. We keep mentioning the 7 million people who left, they're all over the world and they're cheering Trump on on this one. But now they want to see what happens. That's why it's important for the commodity markets. Yes, it's volatility, etc. And we're gonna let it play out, but there'll be some knee jerk reactions. But this thing is gonna play out for months, if not years, Tommy. But it is a major, major foreign policy development for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Jim, I found something that's so beautiful, it's gonna make us cry. This, folks, is the Pentagon Pizza Indicator. Are at DEF CON 4. You guys thought I was making shit up, you know, the BSer and Jimmy's the smart guy here. Mr. Jim Weeksmeyer, you are in DC. Did you know that people were tracking things? I did not know that, but I moved my mouse over and it's a piece of pizza. So what happened Friday when I went to bed was we had a big spike.
SPEAKER_00:And they that is interesting.
SPEAKER_01:This dominoes is 1.4 miles from the Pentagon. This is Extreme Pizza. They're 147% busier. This Domino's pizza here on this day back here was 400% busier than that.
SPEAKER_00:That's called foreign intelligence, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:This actually, I'll tell you what, guys, if you're gonna learn something about trading, that's what I'm on here for. If the markets were open on Friday night and traders like myself would have saw the pizza indicator go 5x, we probably would have bought SP puts because we would have thought something was going on. The stock market would have sold off. The squawk services watch this and they would have said, hey, the pit pizza indicator just exploded. It's never great news. It's not because it's going to be a sunny day the next day. Something uncertainty. Uncertainty, which brings volatility. Folks, save this little screen and I hope uh watching this learned.
SPEAKER_00:I like when I'll watch it now. Yeah, that's an intelligence tool. And don't you think other countries look at that? Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no, but if Tommy Grassaffi and Valparaiso, Indiana's watching it, you should be too. That website is www.pizzint.watch. And it looks just like a trading platform. It's got a ticker and everything else that uh makes my day that I could actually teach you that. Back to the show, Mr. Weissmeyer. We are off the rails. We're not at our normal intensity. It is Sunday, but we have to talk about something extremely serious here. More NWS cases in Mexico. Chance of the border opening, slim to none today, it looks like Mr. Weissmeyer.
SPEAKER_00:No, because when a couple of cases, a couple of new cases, Tommy. And but the key there was the second case was one 170 miles from the US-Mexico border. And that's been the northernmost active case. And that that was the case in how do you pronounce the state? Tomalupas? Yeah. Tomalupas. In the state of Tamalupas.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Right here.
SPEAKER_00:And it's 197 miles from the Texas border. So that shrinks the buffer between the outbreak zone and the United States. So what does this mean? Boy, when I talk to the uh you know different Trump administration officials, they said, don't talk about the possible month that we could reopen the US-Mexico border. Talk about what it will take. And that means no additional infections detected, the testing of nearby animals, etc. So the containment status is going to be key now. So the northern spread uh raises the risk profile. And that's why producers are alarmed in the US because USDA has already estimated$1.8 billion potential loss to Texas alone if it spreads north, Tommy. So there's no evidence screw worm has entered the United States, and we've had the closed border to Mexican livestock since May, you know, and USDA and Texas officials are warning the risk is rising as cases move uh north. But Brooke Rollins, USDA secretary, is the sterile uh uh sterile insect production facility in Edinburgh, Texas, has a capacity of up to 300 million sterile flies per week. But the goal is a biological barrier to stop that northern spread. So, again, bottom line, and that's why the market went up Friday. USDA is not using calendar dates. There's no reopening timeline. The border reopening is tied to biosecurity benchmarks, Tommy. So we have to monitor the containment success, not the political pressure, even coming from Trump, to reopen that border in order to get uh Mexican cattle back into the United States. I do think it's somewhat odd. Maybe it's just coincidence, but I think it's odd that we're only finding one or two examples. So I that that's raised some questions in the conspiratorial crowd. That that was this a setup or not? I I I asked people that question in the government here, and they don't want to answer it. They go, No, they don't believe that's the case. I I just think it's odd that you only have isolated cases like this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, did we talk about this? The scale of the outbreak?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yes, we did. So we're we're back to the very end, Tommy. What's gonna happen before the reopening? Again, sustained containment, no new detections, trapping, sterile fly releases, cross-border coordination, and USDA confidence that the parasite will not breach US territory. All those have to be checked off. What I just said is that later rather than sooner for that reopening of the border, in my judgment. Because it's tied to uh conditions, not dates. And as long as you have fresh detections, that that makes it very uh uh uh hard for the US to announce a border reopening. Now, as far as the market impact, the border closure has cut cattle supply around 10%. Now, I I quoted a veteran cattle industry contact uh over the weekend. He said beef prices could rise around 10% toward 380, Tommy, with this continued closure because and it's gonna strain regional packers, meat packers. So the risk of plant closures this summer and spring and summer are gonna increase again. We may see some more uh you know plant closures because of the tightness of the cattle and reduced packing capacity amid animal herd expansion. If you're eventually you're gonna have herd expansion, but that equals what he said was an economic time bomb. In other words, you're gonna have spike eyes in in the meat market.
SPEAKER_01:Just think about where we were a month, month and a half ago when we were just collapsing without a bid, and we were gonna have all this beef from Brazil and other countries, and where there was all this talk of the second as the cool the weather got cool, we'd open the border. Well, I don't know where this beef's coming in from Brazil, but the stock market's towards the highs and demand's still good for beef. I watched the cash markets at Nesvik Trading. They they have a chat group that watches the cash trading all day. Every day seems a little bit higher than the last. And and big drops are usually are usually just rumor-driven with not a lot of facts behind it.
SPEAKER_00:They are now you you had recently let's connect some dots here. Remember a week or so ago, China, maybe it was last week, China indicated to the US and Brazil, especially, yeah, that they're gonna reduce their their beef imports.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's gonna mean 7% tariff or something.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that means that Brazil's gonna have some more beef to send to the United States, but enough to make a big market impact? I don't think so. That's what the market's telling me. Now we're gonna get a cattle inventory report at the end of this month. That'll probably show fewer cattle than than a year ago. So from a market perspective, it looks like we're gonna have very firm cattle prices until we know more more facts and figures on the US Mexico border reopening. We don't have them now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we have to go back in in the notes. We said Venezuela screwworm, but I skipped over the uh all the farm program benefits, and that's where we need to go. Yeah, those are just charts that you sent, and these are you got some great stuff here, Jim. You want to talk about it? Farmer Bridge consistent program, sir.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we finally got it at uh New Year's Eve. I thought it would be about five o'clock. It was at four o'clock when USDA Eastern Time finally announced the per acre payment rates. Now, they it's it's uh$11 billion. Remember, they held back one billion dollars for specialty crops and sugar, and the source of the funding is the Commodity Credit Corporation. Now, Congress later this year, Tommy, I think they're gonna come back into town tomorrow or early this week, and there's a need for an additional economic aid package from Congress, but we'll cover that later when it happens. Now, the payment timing by February the 28th. Now, some farmers saying, why is it taking USDA so long to get these payments out? When you really think about it, I I'll defend USDA on this one. There's a lot of things to go through, Tommy, and and this is a chunk of change. And so, you know, put the per acre payments up. We finally had that. That's the they're based on USDA cost of production, the WASDI, December report, 2025 Planet Acres. There was a uniform formula modeling, economic losses, not just trade mitigation for the 2025 crop year. And again, payments are going to cover a portion of the model losses scaled to that$11 billion cap. Now look at some of those payments. Look at uh soybeans are just just under$31 per acre. These are per acre. Corn is$44.36 per acre. But initially I had a lot of questions. We can go into the next one, Tommy, where we show look at uh rice and cotton and oats and peanuts and sorghum, but especially rice, cotton, and oats. They have much larger payments. And a lot of uh analysts and and farmers have said, why are they so much higher? Go down to the the chart showing why rice, cotton, and other payment rates around here. Yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, multi-year negative margins, Jim.
SPEAKER_00:This is why look at look at the drain. This these are down, these are losses per acre. And look at the accumulated losses. That's what you have to go through. Look at cotton. I just feel so bad for a cotton producer. Look at rice, they had a hit last year, like you wouldn't believe. Peanuts, I spoke to some peanut grower meetings a couple of weeks ago in DC. I was feeling their pain there. Look at Milo because of the lack of sales uh till recently to China. Corn, I'm not saying corn, wheat, and soybeans have not had multi-year negative margins that have accumulated, but when compared to the cotton and rice and peanut crop, it it pales in comparison. Now, go to the next one, Tommy. Crop payouts by crop. Now, just because uh soybeans and corn don't have that per payment rate per acre payment rate at the other crops, look at the total because of the acres. It's based on acres, corn a little a little over 4.3 billion dollars, soybeans 2.5 billion, call it wheat, almost$2 billion. And you can see the other crops there, cotton a little over$940 million, rice$300 and call it$70 million. And then when you go through by state, these are now these are all from Farm Bureau, John Newton, a good economist there at John Newton, a good friend of mine. These are by state, and you can see the biggest state would be would be Texas, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's all that cotton you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:That's all that cotton, yeah. And but look at uh Illinois and Iowa for uh corn and soybeans, they're flexing their muscles and the 800 almost 900 900 million dollars for Iowa. This is cash flow coming out here by February the 28th. I think it'll be made a little sooner than that, but but this by no means is a bailout, Tommy. By no means is it a bailout for some of the reasons we showed it's been multiple years of drainage. Now, if you go through the next one where we see the OB3 bill, the one big beautiful bill, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Was it we've I don't know if I have a slide for that.
SPEAKER_00:We don't. Well, I'll just tell you we had about$50 billion investment, the largest since the 2002 farm bill, with higher reference prices, improved ARC, increased loan rates, base acres increases, updates the payment limits. And when you bottom line, that's almost$50 billion. But I I know we have the ARC PLC payments for the 2025 crops. That that's a table.
SPEAKER_01:Do you have that one? No, I'm gonna get a C or a D on these. Well, you're gonna have to talk your way through it.
SPEAKER_00:I'll talk it, I'll talk you through it. The ARC and PLC payments for the 2025 crops are not paid until August this year. That's the reason why we have a bridge assistance program because to get us uh to help get us to there. But when we do, farmdock daily out of the University of Illinois projects corn payments of a little over six billion dollars, Tommy. Soybeans, a little over one, uh almost one point two billion dollars. But look at wheat, almost three billion dollars. Bottom line, over three thirteen point five billion dollars are going to be paid out in ARC or PLC payments in October. Okay, and so it that's why we need to get there. Now, I know a farmer should want to say, hey, I'd rather get it from the marketplace. Absolutely. I hope this number goes way down because if it goes way down, that means the market's giving it to you, Tommy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Folks, if you're enjoying this show, every time Jim puts out a post, we put it on the Agbol website, www.agbo.com. And of course, as of January this year, a lot of content I produce will be premium. Weissmeier show will be free, and I'll be going live sometimes in the morning. But all the afternoon shows are now premium, and we have a whole list of new contributors. And proud to announce we have a new farm broadcaster who's starting here with the AgBo media team. We'll uh announce that here in the next few weeks. But if you want premium,$25 a month,$250 annually, www.agbull.com. I'd appreciate if you check it out. Even if you don't want to pay, stop by the website and say hi and that you enjoy this show. If you're watching the show, drop a comment below. Uh Mr. Weissmeyer will be traveling this week. I believe he's going to travel to Florida and then head up and go see the good folks at ProAg in Wisconsin. Jim Telstra.
SPEAKER_00:And ASA American Soybean Association meeting in Bonita Springs. I like Bonita Springs. I'll be there. Let's see. I leave Wednesday and I speak Thursday, and then Thursday I go from there to Wisconsin through Fargo, I believe, and then Minneapolis, I think. But so those are my two spots. But boy, January, my I'll have a series of uh of speeches. So hopefully I'll be at an area near you, Tommy, of all of you. I did want to point out relative to the farm bridge assistance program, had it just been limited to trade mitigation, that total figure would have been half the amount that they announced, the$11 billion. That's just perspective. So that's that's why they added economic aid, uh, because a number of crops were not impacted by the US-China trade frictions. A lot of them were uh soybeans, uh, cotton, sorghum, etc. But that just shows you the the the the the need for economic aid, not just trade mitigation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, let's take it from the top. Let's wind it down the next minute. We're gonna give 20, 30 seconds to each subject. We had three important subjects. We had breaking news, breaking news. We have the United States. This is wild to say, United States invades Venezuela, and we now have a aka chess game of what's going on with the United States. And really, Jim, United States versus China or how China's gonna react to this and how Russia is gonna react to us. Let's uh wrap it up with your perspectives.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's gonna have dominoes. And as we said, Cuba, I think it's just a matter of time before they get rid of the old Castro regime there. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's gonna put pressure on Colombia, etc. And I think that we're seeing the beginning of the watering down of uh countries run by dictators. That's that's what it tells me geopolitically. If it goes well in Venezuela, the the verdict is still out there.
SPEAKER_01:The during the press conference they said F-O-M-O. And if you don't know what that means, like we tell uh our kids, Google it, right? The when the head of the Pentagon's saying you guys were messing with Trump, you know, they have videos of that dictator saying, Come get me, come get me. Yeah, he taunted. He taunted we did. So welcome to America, Mr. Dictator. Yeah, all right. Our farmers are getting money, subject number two, and we have exact amounts per acre. Your perspective.
SPEAKER_00:And go through the those uh uh cotton and rice and peanuts got uh pretty hefty payments relative to corn, soy, beans, and wheat. I didn't point out there is a 900,000 AGI test for eligibility. Now that's a little bit different, Tommy. That means the largest of uh the biggest of the biggest producers may not even qualify for this, and there's a hundred and fifty-five thousand payment limit per person or legal entity. They say that's the OB3 standard on this one. And I had a story that you've got out on your site last week that I looked at the number of times that USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins mentions uh small family farmers. Now that's a phrase that you usually hear from a Democrat administration USDA secretary. So that's been an intriguing one that she's got a little progressive populist uh in her, as far as I'm concerned.
SPEAKER_01:Third subject with your perspective, screwworm. It is getting closer to the border and getting more serious and less contained.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think we show here 197 miles, and that's put any talk about a specific month for reopening of that border. We need to see facts as far as containment rather than these isolated cases. Uh so I think it's going to be later rather than sooner, even though just a few weeks ago I was being told sometime in the month of January they the U.S. wants to reopen that border. It looks like that's being reassessed as we speak.
SPEAKER_01:With that, we'll wrap up the show. Leave us optimistic. You've been around a long time. Have you ever seen the United States just casually over the weekend invade another country?
SPEAKER_00:Not to the degree we've had Panama before and things like that, but nothing like on the realm of Venezuela that has domino impacts here. So it shows you the might of our military. I mean, we If those people who thought our military wasn't up to snuff, look at this operation. So right or wrong, Trump is flexing the U.S. muscle, and at least uh the administration is saying this is pro-democracy, this is anti-dictator, and maybe it'll have signals uh around the world, such as what we've already said, Cuba, Colombia, other countries. So that's a good thing. And as far as the cash flow for farmers, they're gonna get a real big confusion coming up here by February the 28th with these uh farmer bridge assistance packages. Much of that will go, however, to loan repayments. It's not gonna make anybody whole, but at least it's better than no uh uh aid program, Tommy. And I think lawmakers are gonna discuss by the end of this month, I think, the possibility of additional uh farmer economic assistance because the industry needs it.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. We'll see you next week. I know you have some travels. We'll get together in another five to six days and do this, folks. Sure. Upon you watching this, the markets will now be open, and we'll be watching the reaction of the this weekend's news. Let's keep an eye on gold, crude oil, the bond market, the stock market, and let's see what news comes out of China and Russia overnight as they may have something they want to say. Mr. Wiesmeyer, always a pleasure on a special Sunday edition of Wiesmeyer's Perspectives. See you, Jim. Sure.
