Agriculture Secretary Nominee Rollins Commits to Working on Prop. 12 Fix During Confirmation Hearing | NPPC Officers in Washington for Trump’s Inauguration | Trump Calls for “Robust and Reinvigorated” Trade Policy

Agriculture Secretary Nominee Rollins Commits to Working on Prop. 12 Fix During Confirmation Hearing

What happened: President Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, had her confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. She is expected to get full Senate approval soon.

During the hearing, Rollins agreed with Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who raised the issue, that Congress must address the problems caused by California’s Proposition 12.

Rollins said Prop. 12 “…is not just affecting California. It’s affecting multitudes of other states, multitudes of other parts of the ag community, including our hog family farms.”

Rollins committed to working with Congress on implementing a Prop. 12 fix.

NPPC’s take: NPPC supports Rollins’ nomination as secretary of Agriculture and is urging the Senate to quickly confirm her.

Why it matters: The Agriculture secretary oversees USDA’s various agricultural programs, including ones related to conservation, forestry, and nutrition policy, foreign animal disease preparation and prevention, and export promotion. The secretary in the Trump administration will help shape the new five-year Farm Bill.

NPPC Officers in Washington for Trump’s Inauguration

What happened: NPPC officers were in Washington for Donald Trump’s swearing in as the 47th president of the United States.

NPPC President and Minnesota producer Lori Stevermer, President-Elect and Ohio producer Duane Stateler, Vice President and Iowa producer Rob Brenneman, and Immediate Past President and Missouri producer Scott Hays also visited the Canadian embassy officials and attended the “Bipartisan Inaugural Ball Celebrating American Agriculture,” where they visited with agricultural policy makers and industry peers.

NPPC’s take: NPPC is ready and eager to work with the new Trump administration – and the new 119th Congress – on issues of importance to U.S. agriculture generally and America’s pork producers specifically.

Trump Calls for “Robust and Reinvigorated” Trade Policy

What happened: In a memorandum to several departments, including Commerce, State, and Treasury, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, President Trump began the process of reinstituting the “America First” trade policy from his previous term in the White House. He called on department leaders – once confirmed to office – to take steps to establish a “robust and reinvigorated trade policy,” including:

• Investigate the causes of the country’s “large and persistent” annual trade deficits.
• Investigate the feasibility of establishing and recommend the best methods for designing, building, and implementing an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues.
• Review and identify unfair trade practices by other countries and recommend appropriate actions to remedy such practices.
• Assess the impact of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on American agriculture and business and make recommendations on the participation of the United States in the agreement. (Trump said he will impose 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico shipped to
  the United States starting Feb. 1.)
• Review existing U.S. trade agreements and sectoral trade agreements and recommend revisions that may be necessary or appropriate to achieve or maintain the general level of reciprocal and mutually advantageous concessions with respect to free trade agreement partner countries.
• Identify countries with which the United States can negotiate agreements on a bilateral or sector-specific basis to obtain export market access for American workers, farmers, ranchers, service providers, and other businesses and make recommendations regarding
  such potential agreements.
• Review policies and regulations regarding the application of antidumping and countervailing duty laws.

The memo also had several points specific to trade with China, including reviewing its Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status.

Why it matters: International trade is a key economic pillar of the U.S. pork industry. More than 140,000 American jobs are supported by pork exports, which contributed over $15.6 billion to the U.S. economy. Pork exports equate to more than $64 in average value from each hog that is marketed in the U.S.

U.S. pork producers worked hard to build and maintain the current, mutually beneficial trading relationships with Mexico and Canada, nations that rank consistently as top destinations for U.S. pork products. In 2023, U.S. producers exported more than $2.3 billion in pork products to Mexico and another $875 million in products to Canada.

NPPC’s take: NPPC will monitor the Trump administration’s trade policy proposals and urge the administration to pursue comprehensive trade deals that expand market access for and remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to U.S. pork exports.