Trump provided no details on how Perdue might aid farmers.

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who has strongly criticized Trump’s use of tariffs, said the president’s call for more tariffs is “threatening to light American agriculture on fire. Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us. This is the dumbest possible way to do this.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s office issued a preliminary list of 1,300 Chinese products on Tuesday that if finalized would amount to just under $50 billion in tariffs. The tariffs are designed to punish Beijing for policies such as forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to form joint ventures with Chinese partners and share their proprietary information or technology with those partners.

Beijing responded on Wednesday with a list of U.S. products that included Boeing Co. planes, American soybeans and other agricultural goods that would be subject to a 25 percent tariff if the Trump administration finalized its tariff list of Chinese goods.