undermining the market for corn-based ethanol as farmers are losing export sales from the U.S. trade war with China.

President Donald Trump has struggled since taking office in 2017 to thread the needle between the oil and corn constituencies, which helped propel the Republican to office and whose support he wants to maintain in the 2020 presidential election.

Members of the White House National Economic Council first delivered their message in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning with representatives from major biofuel companies like Louis Dreyfus and Renewable Energy Group, four sources said.

During the meeting, the White House officials urged biofuel company representatives to accept a Trump administration proposal to boost biofuel blending quotas next year by 5%, even though it fell short of the industry’s wishes, three of thenext day, two sources familiar with the discussions said.

“We remain hopeful that President Trump will move swiftly to protect farmers and biofuel workers, but efforts to reverse the damage will be meaningless unless the agency acts now to stop the bleeding,” the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, Growth Energy, the Renewable Fuels Association, the National Biodiesel Board, and Fuels America said in a joint statement after Wednesday’s meeting.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed in June that the volume of biofuels that refiners must blend in 2020 should be just over 20 billion gallons, including 15 billion gallons of ethanol. The rule, including any changes the administration wishes to make, must be finalized by the end of November to take effect in 2020.

Under the RFS, small oil