During the Trump administration's announcement on Dec. 8, 2025 about the $12 billion aid package for farmers, he called for farm equipment manufacturers to lower prices “because farming equipment has gotten too expensive.”

No one would disagree with that statement, in fact for the second year in a row dealers ranked the increasing cost of new equipment as their top concern in the 2026 Dealer Business Outlook & Trends survey. And, 88.8% of dealers expect a price increase of 1-6% from their mainline supplier in 2026, with another 10% expecting prices to be up 7% or more.

During the announcement Trump said, “There's so much equipment for environmental stuff that doesn’t do anything but makes equipment much more expensive and complicated to work on and it's not as good as the old days.

“They have to reduce their prices. Farming equipment has gotten too expensive and a lot of the reason is because of environmental [emission standards] on equipment that don't do a damn thing except make it more complicated. We're going to take that crap off that they put on. They’re always under repair because they’re so complicated because they can’t fix them. You have to be a PhD."

There certainly was a price increase associated with Tier 4 Interim and Tier 4 Final engines, but that price increase took place about a decade ago. And, as we reported back in 2014, it was a hard pill to swallow. 

Back in April 2014, Ag Equipment Intelligence reported:

According to one dealer we spoke with, "When Tier 4 Interim was introduced, most of our products came with SCR technology, which was well accepted by customers because they saw improvements in fuel economy of about 6%. When you think about the diesel fuel some of those tractors and combines go through in a day, that's a big savings. The price increase for significant fuel savings was a good trade off."

He says the challenge of the price increase is compounded because of the changing economics of farming. "Last year and the year before we saw some really strong commodity prices and there was a pretty tight supply of new equipment, so it was a little easier to pass those higher costs through. As we see a little more tightening of the economy and customers being more selective in their purchase decisions, it becomes more difficult to pass that on and get full price realization."

The dealer went on to say, much as Trump is suggesting, that for farm customers Tier 4 Final engines created minimal additional value over Tier 4 Interim. "What you're seeing is more complexity, bigger mufflers, bigger radiators to dissipate heat with basically the same fuel economy as with Tier 4 Interim. It's just one of these government mandated costs that have to be absorbed some place, and it's an industry-wide issue,” the dealer said. 

Today’s high prices are on top of those increases from a decade ago. They come from the increasing cost of raw materials, tech advancements and to at least some degree whether Trump wants to admit it or not the tariffs he’s put in place. In the October Dealer Sentiments Report one dealer said, “OEMs are raising new machinery costs via base price incentives. We think they are baking in tariff related costs as well into some of the price increase.”

It’s not limited to the mainlines and equipment with engines, either. Another dealer in the same report said, “Shortline OEMs appear to be passing along price increases nearing +10%. We are concerned the increase will deter purchases.” 

My question to dealers and manufacturers: is it as easy as our president suggests? Is lowering the cost of equipment as “easy” as eliminating the emissions-related technology?