Last summer, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., made no secret about his goal of becoming the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Walking around the Missouri State Fair and meeting with ag leaders, he also knew it was going to take a lot of work to not only win the majority, but convince his colleagues to pick him as the youngest congressman to ever chair the committee, and the first Missourian since 1859.
Flash forward to 2023, and Smith was back at the state's fair to share what he’s been working on since being tapped to lead the committee in January. Agri-Pulse caught up with him for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.
Some of the questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
1. What do you see on the horizon as far as opportunities to expand agricultural trade?
It’s really unfortunate that not a lot has been going on. President Biden and [the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative] have been completely out to lunch when it comes to trade policy and opening up markets. I've been to eight countries myself talking to trade ministers, presidents and foreign leaders to try to open up those markets and to make sure that the countries that we do have trade agreements with actually uphold their agreements. Because if we have trade agreements with countries, and they don't uphold their agreements, it only hurts our farmers and ranchers that much more.
I met with the president of Mexico for several hours to talk about their resistance to purchasing U.S. corn, saying that it's not safe and it's not clean. I assured him that we know science, and U.S. corn is the best corn anywhere in the world. Same way with the dairy farmers being unfairly displaced by the Canadians. We’ve got to hold their feet to the fire, but we need to open up new markets.
That's why we went to Thailand. For example, why does Thailand have a 50% tariff on U.S. beef? That's unacceptable. If they want us to be a partner, they need to make sure that they eliminate those tariffs. But it's not just tariffs, it's non-tariff barriers, for example, that the United Kingdom has on U.S. agriculture that need to be addressed.
2. What countries or regions do you see as the biggest targets for expansion of agricultural trade?
We just passed the most bipartisan trade agreement in the history of Congress. Every Republican, every Democrat passed the U.S.-Taiwan agreement. When I first started talking with the president of Taiwan, my first question was about what they were doing with labeling U.S. pork, which was unsatisfactory. They've completely reversed that and they're now promoting U.S. pork, and that'll help promote more agricultural products going to Taiwan.
South Korea already purchases a substantial amount of U.S. ag products. I spoke with the president of South Korea just two weeks ago to increase purchases. I also think Japan is a market that, if we can eliminate some of the tariffs, can be enriched with U.S. ag products, as well as the Philippines and Thailand.
3. As part of the farm bill, several farm organizations are interested in expanding funding for the Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development program. However, there doesn’t appear to be any “new” money available to promote more ag products overseas. Is there anything that you're thinking about from your committee that might be helpful to enable more market promotion?
The chairman of the Ag Committee, GT Thompson, is doing a phenomenal job. He's been traveling all over the country in 30 states preparing for this farm bill. We're going to try everything we can to make this the best farm bill that we've ever seen. And we're going to have to look at all kinds of revenues and resources, because the added value products from agriculture [are] what can really create some rural development and help rural America.
My priority as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is to put farmers, ranchers, the American workers and small businesses first and foremost, in all our priorities. And since we look at revenue, that's something that we're in the middle of.
4. There's a handful of your Republican counterparts who have already expressed an interest in saying “no” to any new farm bill, without significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). What is your opinion on that?
You know, with a 222-seat majority, five people can make a huge difference in whether something's passed or not. But people have told us for the last seven months that we can't accomplish various items and we've proven them wrong every time.
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It's not going to be easy to pass a farm bill, but we're going to get there. We'll get there with the right work. And it's going to take everyone, but we're going to have to listen to the needs and desires of all the different members, and that's what will ultimately become final law.
5. By the end of 2025, many of the tax breaks from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 will expire. What’s the strategy for maintaining some of those tax cuts or looking at other changes?
We're traveling the country. I think the best wisdom you can get is outside of Washington, D.C. That's why my first committee hearing as chairman was to have it in Petersburg, West Virginia, to hear from small business owners, coal miners, farmers and ranchers about the real issues they're facing and how the tax code could make their lives better.
As we move forward, we're going to continue to consider all the different provisions whether it's the death tax, whether it's the individual rates, whether it's the small business deduction, and whether it's expensing. Are those effective? Should they be extended? Should they be made permanent? Could they be improved in different ways?
We pushed a new program called a rural opportunity zone. The opportunity zones were very successful in 2017. But more than 95% of the funding went to urban areas. This one is focused directly on rural areas and distressed communities.
Like I said, my priorities are farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and working-class Americans. If you take care of small businesses, big companies will be fine. The big companies have all these lobbyists, always advocating for them, but the small guys, they just have themselves.
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