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Attorney Brooke Rollins Will Be Trump’s USDA Head. What Does That Mean for Rural America? [1]

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Date: 2024-11-27

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see? Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.

Texan Brooke Rollins is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), one of the most consequential federal agencies for rural spending and development.

But who is she, and what might her leadership bring to rural America?

Raised on a farm in the small town of Glen Rose, Texas, Rollins has a rural background but little direct agricultural experience besides her upbringing and a degree in agricultural development at Texas A&M University.

Farm industry reactions to her nomination reflected this background: while groups like the National Farmers Union and American Farm Bureau Foundation offered Rollins their congratulations, other groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Food and Environment Program voiced concern about her lack of agricultural experience.

“Outside of a misdirected interest in Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, Brooke Rollins appears to have no agricultural policy track record to comment on,” the program’s deputy director Karen Perry Stillerman said in a statement.

Trump initiated a trade war with China during his first term as president by issuing steep tariffs on Chinese imports, to which they retaliated with their own tariffs on American products like soybeans and pork. This harmed U.S. farmers in particular, who were then compensated for lost business through the USDA’s market facilitation program.

A second Trump term promises to bring more tariffs. On Monday, Trump announced that he plans to invoke steep tariff hikes on goods from Canada, China, and Mexico on his first day in office. This adds to proposals he made on the campaign trail of tariffs of up to 60% on Chinese goods, and tariffs between 10 and 20% on all other goods entering the United States.

Republicans from agriculture states have voiced concern at the proposals because of their effect on farmers, but it’s unclear whether Trump will even have to go through Congress to pass the tariff legislation he wants to see.

The USDA also administers food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Benefits from this program have the greatest impact in rural communities, according to a 2021 USDA report.

Trump sought major budget cuts to SNAP during his first term, and food policy experts warn he’ll pursue similar legislation during his second.

Theoretically, the agriculture secretary could function as a brake system to the president’s plans, but Rollins has proved herself to be a Trump loyalist unlikely to put up much resistance to any Trump-approved legislation. Prior to her nomination, Rollins served as president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank that earlier this year released a conservative and highly religious policy agenda.

Unlike the much more well-known Heritage Foundation and its “Project 2025” policy agenda, the America First Policy Institute kept their plans for another Trump administration largely under wraps – a strategic move, according to policy experts.

“It understood what Heritage didn’t: Transition work is always best kept very quiet,” said Heath Brown, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in a New York Times interview.

Leaders from the America First Policy Institute have now become enmeshed in Trump’s new cabinet. In addition to Rollins, last week Trump announced that Pam Bondi, the head of the institute’s legal arm, would be his new attorney general pick (replacing Matt Gaetz as nominee).

Regardless of anything she ends up doing as agriculture secretary, Rollins is already making history: she’ll be the second woman to ever lead the USDA, which employs an estimated 100,000 people. In a statement posted on X, Rollins said the nomination was “big stuff” for a “small-town ag girl” from rural Texas.

“It will be the honor of my life to fight for America’s farmers and our nation’s agricultural communities,” she said.

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