The Trump administration has said it will use an emergency funding program to pay up to 12 billion US dollars to help farmers. They have been hit hard in the trade war with China, the European Union and others. In the worsening trade conflicts that Trump himself started, it looks like he's determined to stick with tariffs as his weapon of choice. Our correspondent Owen Fairclough has been following the story.

Farmers in rural mid west of America were critical in helping to put Donald Trump in the White House but they are hurting in the global trade war. US government estimate that US farmers have lost some of 11 billion dollars, as a result of China applying retaliatory tariffs, on the kind of products they export to China. We are talking about soybeans and pork, all the products that have been feeding China's growing appetite. Those tariffs put in place by China in retaliation for Trump's administration applying tariffs on China to try to change what it alleged the "unfair trade practices". So the farmers are being hurting but they are now in line for some 12 billion US dollars in emergency funding. Donald Trump tweeted earlier the Tuesday that tariffs are great and trade wars are easy to win. He was in the rural state of Missouri to tell farmers and other members of his supporter base these tariffs are now helping to pressure trade partners to come in back in the negotiation table for a better deal. Here's US President Donald Trump.

DONALD TRUMP US PRESIDENT "Making tremendous progress and they are all coming, they don't want the tariffs put on them and they are all coming to see us. And the farmers are the biggest beneficiary."

But many observers of the trade war would dispute that tariffs are working. Talks between China and US are broking down. Chinese government insist that it can absorb any losses sustained from those tariffs, such as the size of its industrial output. Even members of Trump's own republican party are incensed the idea giving what they call bail out to farms, with Trump have created the situation by applying tariffs on China in the first place. This emergency aid came for the US farmers. But two hearings held by the US government into the impact of the tariffs. Lawmakers from businesses keen to try to mitigate the effects of tariffs on metal imports. But there are also smaller businesses who were disproportionately hit to argue their cases as well. I spoke to one from Vape store in Virginia, who explained how the tariffs on Chinese exports to US for her products, would hit not only her business, but suppliers as well.

TRACY MUSGROVE VAPE STORE OWNER "Our profit margins are not that big to begin with, so not just retail stores but also the distributors we buy from that sometimes aren't huge businesses either."

But none of this ends with the hearings Donald Trump's threatening to escalate his trade war with China to the tune of 500 billion dollars on China's entire volumes of exports to US. And let's not forget EU as well. Trump's a battle there with metal imports. He's due to receive head of EU Commission on Wednesday to talk about tariffs with threat of new duties on automobiles, one of the visible signs of the trade wars start to hit consumers to the tune of thousands of dollars. If these two sides cannot resolve their differences. OWEN FAIRCLOUGH, CGTN, WASHINGTON.