Trump picks ex-adviser Brooke Rollins for agriculture chief

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump picked Brooke Rollins as U.S. secretary of agriculture, tapping a member of his first-term White House team and elevating another loyalist to his incoming administration.

Rollins’ commitment to supporting farmers, food self-sufficiency and the restoration of agriculture-dependent American small towns “is second to none,” Trump said Saturday in a statement.

Rollins heads the America First Policy Institute, which she founded in 2021 to help lay the groundwork for Trump’s eventual return to the White House. Its tasks included creating how-to guides for incoming staffers and policy recommendations from people who served during the first Trump administration.

The conservative Texas lawyer was previously director of the Domestic Policy Council and assistant to the president for strategic initiatives during Trump’s first administration, where she was involved in securing a bipartisan criminal justice reform law. She also served as former Gov. Rick Perry’s policy director before heading the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Rollins’ name emerged after CNN reported Friday that Trump was expected to select Kelly Loeffler, a former senator from Georgia and prominent donor.

His ultimate choice was a reminder that no nominee is final until announced by Trump — as evidenced by the contest for Treasury secretary, which spilled into public view and ended up with the president-elect picking hedge fund executive Scott Bessent, who beat out rivals in a dramatic competition after starting off as the front-runner.

If confirmed, Rollins will be a crucial adviser to lawmakers on shepherding a long-stalled farm bill through Congress after the 2018 reauthorization expired last year and received a short-term extension.

She’d also be likely to review the department’s internal operations, given Trump’s stated goal of making government cuts.

“I look forward to working with her to ensure that modern agriculture remains competitive and allows farm families to thrive so they can continue to supply an affordable and abundant supply of food and fiber,” Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the senior Republican on chamber’s Agriculture Committee, said on X.

Trump cited Rollins’s experience, including her agriculture studies at Texas A&M University, her family’s farming background and “guiding her four kids in their show cattle careers.” She “will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers,” he said.

The Agriculture Department’s role goes beyond farm policy — it also manages food stamps, school lunches and other nutrition programs, and it’s responsible for forest conservation, food inspections and rural development.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s manifesto for conservative policy seen by many as a guidebook for the incoming administration, has called the department’s mission “overly broad.”

That blueprint calls for reducing farm subsidies, slashing environmental regulations and cutting spending on nutrition programs, which would move to the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump has distanced himself from Heritage’s work, but hasn’t put forward a detailed agriculture policy of his own.

Agriculture is likely to be swept up in other Trump priorities, including the threat of higher tariffs that could prompt foreign retaliation against U.S. farm exports. Trump papered over the issue in his last presidency by raiding billions in leftover funds from a crop insurance program.

Rollins’ policy group has been seen as a sort of shadow government for the second Trump administration. Many top officials in it served in high-ranking positions in the first administration and have spent the last four years planning potential policies and drafting lists of personnel to help Trump transition back to the White House.

AFPI chair Linda McMahon headed the Small Business Administrations during Trump’s first term, was named co-chair of Trump’s transition and was chosen by the president-elect on Tuesday to lead the Department of Education.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who was among the names floated for secretary, said he looks forward to working with Rollins and Trump “to make agriculture great again!”

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(With assistance from Skye Witley.)