President-elect Trump plans to nominate Brooke Rollins as Ag secretary
Rollins served as director of the Office of American Innovation and acting director of the Domestic Policy Council during the first Trump administration. She then founded the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), where she now serves as president and CEO.
The AFPI says it “exists to advance policies that put the American people first. Our guiding principles are liberty, free enterprise, national greatness, American military superiority, foreign-policy engagement in the American interest, and the primacy of American workers, families, and communities in all we do.”
AFPI has been a prominent adviser to Trump, but has not been prominent in debates about agriculture. It has opposed Chinese ownership of American farmland, The New York Times reported.
If confirmed by the Senate, Rollins would be expected to play a role in the development of Trump’s tariff policies and the impact those tariffs on foreign goods would have on U.S. agricultural exports.
In the first Trump administration, China retaliated against U.S. tariffs on manufactured goods by cutting back on U.S. farm imports and the administration made more than $23 billion in payments to farmers to make up for their losses. If Rollins and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, are both confirmed, the two Cabinet secretaries would be expected to interact over Kennedy’s criticism of modern agribusiness and his campaign to convince Americans to eat healthier food.
USDA and HHS also are expected to work together to develop the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which offer advice on how people should eat and also determine the foods used in federal government programs from school lunches to military base cafeterias. Trump’s decision to pick Rollins for Ag secretary came as a surprise. On Friday, CNN reported that he was expected to offer the job to former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.
“Before her tenure in the White House, Ms. Rollins served as president of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential nonprofit that has worked to push public funding to private schools, increase the role of Christianity in civic life and heavily promote fossil fuels,” The New York Times said. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported Trump’s choice of Rollins, noted that she grew up on a farm near Glen Rose, Texas, about 52 miles from Fort Worth.
In a video message for this year’s Ag Women Connect conference, Rollins, 52, noted that she was active in Future Farmers of America and 4-H. She graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in agriculture development.
According to her Wikipedia biography, Rollins served as the speaker pro tempore of the Student Senate, the chair of the Texas A&M Judicial Court, as a Fish Camp counselor, and was Cotton Bowl Classic queen.Rollins went on to get a law degree from the University of Texas Law School. She practiced law at Hughes & Luce, LLP in Dallas and clerked under U.S. Federal District Court judge Barbara M. Lynn.According to an interview she gave to Texas A&M in 2022, Rollins is married to Mark Rollins, and has four children. The family lives in Fort Worth. According to his LinkedIn page, Mark Rollins is president and a director of HKN Energy, Ltd, a U.S. independent oil and gas company focused on the Kurdistan region of Iraq. He is also president of Hillwood Energy, a U.S.-focused oil and gas company owned by Ross Perot Jr.
Reactions to the announcement continued over the weekend while the American Ag Network posted Trump’s announcement and The New York Times published a “what to know’ article about Rollins. Rollins worked for Trump in the White House in his first administration and heads the America First Policy Institute. The American Sugar Alliance congratulated Brooke Rollins on being nominated. Jack Pettus, the chairman of the American Sugar Alliance, which represents beet and cane farmers, said, “America’s sugarbeet and sugarcane farmers and factory workers applaud President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to ensuring that agriculture remains a vital cornerstone of our nation’s economy and food security. Agriculture is facing historic challenges, and we look forward to working with Secretary-designate Rollins to support our farmers, protect rural communities, and preserve the most abundant and diverse food supply in the world.”
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane said, “From her time as a college student studying agriculture development to her distinguished career in Texas and Washington, Brooke Rollins has a history of fighting for Main Street and rural America. America’s cattle producers need a secretary of Agriculture who will protect family farms and ranches, roll back crushing regulations, and stand up for rural values — and we look forward to working with Secretary-Designate Rollins to make it happen.”
American Dairy Coalition CEO Laurie Fischer said, “We look forward to working with the next secretary of Agriculture on ways to reduce redundancies, wasteful spending and improve efficiency so that more of the dollars intended to support farms get to the actual farmers.”
“We are encouraged by Rollins’ history with the Office of American Innovation in Trump’s first term because our farmers are key innovators and lifelong stewards of natural resources. Now more than ever, we need real world application of sound farmer-led policy and innovation to the realities faced by America’s farmers and the country they work hard every day to feed,” said Fischer.
“As a grassroots dairy farmer-led organization, we want to work with incoming USDA and HHS secretaries to fix food nutrition policy, such as a long overdue reform of the Dietary Guidelines that govern school meals where children have been prohibited from choosing whole milk and 2% milk since 2010.”Children are only permitted by USDA to have fat-free or 1% low-fat milk, which they often discard,” said Fischer.
“In the current nutrition regulatory environment, essential vitamins and minerals are under-consumed while sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other additives are over-consumed. Ultra-processed foods dominate school meals over many nutrient-dense foods because of USDA’s low-fat prescriptions,” Fischer said.
The National Milk Producers Federation said on X, “Congratulations to @BrookeLRollins on her nomination to become the next @USDA Secretary. #Dairy farmers are ready to hit the ground running in 2025!”
The International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) said it “congratulates Brooke Rollins on being nominated to serve as U.S. secretary of Agriculture.”
“We look forward to collaborating with Secretary-elect Rollins, pending Senate confirmation, and the Trump administration to strengthen American agriculture by reducing regulatory burdens, expanding market opportunities and addressing the labor challenges that threaten U.S. farmers’ competitiveness both domestically and worldwide.
“We especially appreciate the incoming administration’s focus on health and are eager to expand access and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables to enhance the well-being of all Americans,” IFPA said.
“As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country,” Trump said in a statement announcing the decision Saturday. (See link for full statement.)Shortly after Trump made the announcement Saturday, Rollins wrote in a post on X that “It will be the honor of my life to fight for America’s farmers and our Nation’s agricultural communities.””WHO’S READY TO MAKE AGRICULTURE GREAT AGAIN?” she added.
–The Hagstrom Report
