Dear Secretary-designate Rollins:
Congratulations on your nomination, and I wish you the very best! The secretary of agriculture has a big portfolio, and anyone filling that office has to be an expert on everything from forest fires to dairy policy. That’s a given, but you will have some extra challenges.
Your counterpart at HHS has compared pig farmers to Osama Bin Laden and found the pig farmers wanting. The nominee for head of the Food and Drug Administration recently said that we (and here I’m pretty sure he meant the farmers that you represent) are "poisoning" the food supply. Cabinet meetings are going to be fun!
Not only will farmers expect you to stand up for science and common sense within the councils of government, but you are going to have to take agriculture’s position to the public as well. We’ve had a few months of very positive news coverage of “Make America Healthy Again,” and while the concerns of your fellow cabinet members about public health and particularly obesity are well founded, some of their solutions are, to put it mildly, bonkers. We farmers need your help.
Trade is going to be a challenge. In his remarks upon your appointment, President Trump mentioned that he wanted the U.S. to be self-sufficient in food. Self-sufficiency may be a worthy goal, but we need to talk about the importance of coffee imports. However, any decline in banana imports in the name of self-sufficiency is fine with me.
President Trump has made it clear that he will increase tariffs on imports. The cabinet appointees who deal with foreign trade and diplomacy are fully on board with his trade policy. Six years into our present tariff regime, we’ve seen our agricultural trade surplus disappear and have developed a huge deficit in agriculture trade. I suppose this is what prompted President Trump’s remarks about self-sufficiency. An impartial observer might wonder if doubling down on tariffs is a good solution, but here we are. As the old saying goes, we’re about to get what we want, good and hard.
Now, one advantage you do have is the strong support for President Trump from farmers and rural America. As our spokesperson inside the Trump administration, you represent a constituency that strongly supports the President. He remembered that support during his last administration, when tariffs caused a crash in ag exports, by tapping the Commodity Credit Corporation for funds to help farmers survive the loss of export markets.
As I’m sure you know, some of the farm bill proposals being discussed would end the second Trump administration’s ability to tap the CCC for trade assistance. Farmer support for President Trump is broad and deep, but we do depend on exports to a larger extent than most industries. We’ll need you to speak up for the importance of agricultural trade.
I’m excited that the secretary of agriculture grew up showing cattle, served as a state FFA officer, and has roots in farming and ranching that are broad and deep. Congratulations, and Good Luck!
Blake Hurst is a farmer and greenhouse grower in northwest Missouri.