Brooke Rollins says she’ll shield farmers from impacts of Trump’s tar…

  

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WASHINGTON — Brooke Rollins, President Donald Trump’s pick for Agriculture Secretary, stood behind the president’s proposals for mass deportations and tariffs even as she acknowledged they could make life harder for farmers.

But she told senators at her nomination hearing Thursday that she will find ways to cushion the blows.

Trump believes tariffs are “a very important tool in his toolkit to continue to bring America back to the forefront of the world, and to ensure that we have a thriving economy,” Rollins said. “But just as he did and we did in the first administration, he also understands the potential devastating impact to our farmers and our ranchers. So I fully understand and we are prepared to do something similar — to ensure that we can close those holes moving forward under any sort of tariff execution.”

Trump has threatened to levy 25% tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. Mexico is Texas’ biggest trading partner and one of the state’s biggest agricultural export markets, along with Canada.

Texas farmers bore the consequences of Trump’s tariffs against China in 2018, which were met with retaliatory tariffs by Beijing on cotton, corn and sorghum, some of Texas’ biggest exports. The Trump White House allocated aid at the time for the agriculture sector to weather some of the losses resulting from the tariffs.

Democrats on the committee noted that several farmers said during the last Trump administration that they would prefer “trade, not aid” and to open up overseas markets. Rollins said she would work with the U.S. Trade Representative and others in the administration to make sure farmers are protected amid tariffs.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, also pointed out that 40% of agriculture workers in the country are undocumented. Rollins didn’t dispute the industry’s reliance on undocumented labor but defended Trump’s plans for mass deportations.

“Listen, the president’s vision of a secure border and a mass deportation at a scale that matters is something I support,” Rollins said. “That is my commitment to help deploy President Trump’s agenda in an effective way.”

Numerous Democrats asked how farms could operate with so much of the labor force deported. Rollins repeatedly said she would work with Trump’s Department of Labor to “make sure none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business.” She said reforming the H-2A temporary agricultural worker visa could fill the labor gap. She pointed out that Trump has been “very clear that this first round will be aimed at, as you mentioned, those who have committed crimes.”

Rollins, a native of Glen Rose, is one of Trump’s less controversial nominations. The Agriculture Committee, which is largely bipartisan, will vote at a future meeting on advancing her nomination to the full Senate, who will vote on her confirmation.

Rollins currently leads the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank closely linked to Trump. She previously served as CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, one the most prominent conservative think tanks in Texas. The group has had an outsized influence on the national stage with several of its alumni gaining prominence in national conservative circles. Rollins said she modeled the America First Policy Institute off of TPPF.

“At TPPF, we fundamentally redefined the mission of a think tank from just having ideas or writing about them in white papers to actually effectually changing policy for the people of our state,” Rollins said. “We engaged strongly during those 15 years with Texas rural and small town communities, giving them a voice in government that was too often denied.”

Rollins vowed to dedicate the first 100 days as secretary to pushing out disaster aid to farmers reeling from recent natural disasters, including droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves. Congress passed a disaster relief package in December that included over $3 billion expected to go to Texas’ agriculture sector. She portrayed a farming environment beleaguered by high input costs and market uncertainty.

“It will be a fast and furious effort to make sure we move that economic aid out,” Rollins said.

She also agreed with Democrats on the committee that the trend of farms being bought up by multinational corporations at the expense of smaller farms should be reversed.

“We have to find a better way, and it can’t come always through government subsidies. We’ve got to expand the market,” Rollins said.

Rollins vowed to support food assistance and nutrition programs that make up the lion’s share of federal spending on agriculture such as SNAP. She said she was “fully aware and have a heart for this work,” but added it is imperative to ensure those taxpayer dollars go to intended recipients and are spent efficiently.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress have been divided on implementing more stringent work requirements for SNAP. Food assistance programs like SNAP make up an overwhelming majority of spending under the Farm Bill, a mammoth legislative package normally passed every five years. Congress has punted for over a year on renewing the Farm Bill, with work and nutrition requirements for SNAP remaining a fissure.

Almost all SNAP participants are already required to work unless they have extraordinary circumstances such as childcare and eldercare. Rollins called work requirements “important” and said she would commit to working with Democrats to make sure they are implemented fairly.

The Agriculture Department manages a wide-reaching portfolio. In addition to the nation’s farming, the department also oversees rural development in areas including health care and housing.

Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, feared that USDA’s rural development program, a little understood branch of the agency that is involved in rural issues ranging from housing to health care, could be gutted as part of Trump’s government efficiency push. Government efficiency is a top priority of the Trump White House, with the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk set on cutting billions of dollars in federal spending.

Rollins said she appreciated that rural development went beyond agriculture and that “revivifying, restoring and bringing back rural America” was one of the programs she was most excited about, including supporting housing and education for rural Americans.

Under her leadership, TPPF opposed biofuels, which are made from agriculture products and are a major priority for agriculture interests that crosses party lines. Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, about the organization’s post opposition, Rollins acknowledged that the group has historically supported the state’s oil and gas industry, which at times competes with biofuel production. But she said she was open to supporting the biofuels industry, as is Trump.

Klobuchar asked about Rollins’ family’s financial interests in the oil and gas industry, which Rollins had to disclose as part of her nomination. Rollins insisted that “anyone that has ever worked with me will tell you, even to the detriment of organizations I have run, detriment financially to my potential family, that I have never, not ever made a decision based on financial interests, ever.”

Neither of Texas’ two senators serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee. But both Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduced Rollins at Thursday’s hearing, calling her a “no-brainer.” Both have known Rollins for decades going back to her time in the Texas governor’s office and leading the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

“She’s proven herself to be a leader, she’s proven herself to be an innovative policy thinker, and she’s proven herself able to bring people together to accomplish major objectives,” Cruz said.

“Everybody who knows Brooke Rollins loves Brooke Rollins, and you will, too,” said Cornyn.

During the first Trump administration, Rollins worked in the White House as director of the Domestic Policy Council and as assistant to the president for strategic initiatives. In that role, she worked with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to pass the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that was signed into law in 2018 — an experience that she highlighted to show that she was eager to work with members of both parties at USDA.

Rollins previously served as policy director to former Gov. Rick Perry, where her portfolio included agriculture policy. Several Republican governors endorsed Rollins’ nomination including Gov. Greg Abbott, in a letter earlier this month.

“Simply put, there are few better qualified than Secretary-designate Brooke Leslie Rollins to understand and engage state concerns, state priorities, and state action,” the governors wrote.

Texas is a leading agricultural state, with over 230,662 farms covering 125.5 million acres. The majority of Texas agriculture is in meat, with over half of the industry’s market value — roughly $15 billion worth — being in beef production, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Rollins’ mother is state Rep. Helen Kerwin, who represents state House district 58 based in Cleburne and Rollins jokingly referred to as the “oldest freshman legislator in Texas history.” Kerwin was in the audience during Thursday’s hearing and took advantage of her trip to Washington to talk with senators about PFAS, chemicals often used in water resistant materials that have been linked to cancer.

Rollins graduated from Texas A&M and the University of Texas Law School.

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.