Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC
Summary
Rollins is treating domestic farm capacity as strategic infrastructure: “Food security is national security.” That conviction now overrides her old preference for “free markets for the sake of free markets”: she argues crop insurance and farm support cannot be abruptly gutted because failed farms could be acquired by foreign interests, leaving America dependent on China, Brazil, or Argentina for food. Her desired endpoint remains less aid, but only after stronger markets let producers earn profits without checks.
SNAP reform is the administration’s biggest food-policy lever, with Friedberg sizing the program at $123 billion a year and soda at roughly $15 billion of that spend. Rollins sent all 50 governors waiver invitations within an hour of being sworn in on February 13 and is categorical that taxpayer dollars should not buy “sugary drinks and junk food that’s making our kids sick.” USDA spends $370 million daily across 13 nutrition programs, while the waiver process gives states room to change how those programs operate.
The farm economy faces near-term tariff pain inside Rollins’s longer-term bet on “fair markets for the sake of America.” She says farmers remain highly supportive of Trump but “they’re not going to be able to survive that long” without relief from thin row-crop margins and export disruption. Her claimed benchmark is a swing from roughly zero trade deficit under Trump’s first term to $50 billion under Biden; Friedberg noted that China historically bought $36 billion a year of US agricultural products. Rollins plans to visit India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Peru, and the UK to pursue markets.
Agricultural labor is the unresolved constraint that could overwhelm any trade gains. Friedberg cited strawberry-industry labor costs rising from $700 million before Covid to $2 billion, and a declared 20% labor shortage among California farmers, which Rollins cautioned Californians may inflate. Rollins contrasted Mexican farm wages of about $2 an hour with $20-$23 on the US side and noted that dairy work is year-round, making seasonal visas unsuitable. Trump, she said, wants people who are not here legally to leave but is developing “some sort of program” to preserve farm labor; details remain unavailable.
USDA’s restructuring is already material, but Rollins distinguishes efficiency from indiscriminate cuts. The department spans 29 sub-agencies, more than 100,000 employees, 4,500 locations, and a budget above $200 billion; she says nearly $6 billion of contracts have been canceled while workforce reductions and reorganization proceed. DOGE is “like all my dreams have come true,” yet she warns that gutting crop insurance would destroy thousands of farms.
The next farm bill is structurally a nutrition bill: Rollins puts SNAP at 85% and farmer programs at only 15%. Friedberg described the broader bill as roughly $1.5 trillion and framed SNAP as serving House interests while farm programs serve rural-state Senate interests. Rollins says SNAP grew 40% during the Biden administration, while farm reference prices have not changed since the prior bill, leaving bipartisan farm support tied to contentious benefit reform. The discussion’s desired direction is to protect producers while moving recipients toward “a life of work filled with dignity”—because “no one wants a handout.”
On cellular agriculture, Rollins rejected a reflexive innovation ban but offered an explicitly preliminary view. Friedberg argued that state bans risk recreating Europe’s innovation stagnation even when products can be regulated for safety and consumers allowed to choose. Rollins conceded, “I have not dug into this yet the amount that I need to,” then said innovation “should never be stifled” and predicted consumers would still prefer real American beef.
Deep dive
1. Preparation, not improvisation, is the operating model of Trump’s second term
Rollins’s path began in agriculture rather than Washington: a small-town Texas upbringing, summers on her family’s Minnesota row-crop farm, 4-H and FFA, barrel racing, and an agriculture scholarship to Texas A&M, where she studied soil science, meats, feeds, and feeding before law school.
Rick Perry recruited her at 28 from a Dallas law firm, where she was billing in six-minute increments and “loved the firm, didn’t love the work.” As his deputy general counsel and later policy director, she concluded that industry and lobbyists supplied most policy advice while almost nobody advocated simply for “freedom and for liberty and for God and for family.”
At the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Rollins grew the organization from two employees to roughly 120 while raising four children. Her claimed edge was practical rather than academic: having seen “the sausage making,” she understood “how to stop bad things and how to move good things,” then brought that operating model into Trump’s first White House.
After the 2020 loss, Rollins created the America First Policy Institute to preserve governing knowledge that otherwise might disappear. The operation grew to $90 million, assembled nine former cabinet members and 50 former senior White House staff, and quietly prepared 300 executive orders plus 196 agency plans; seven members of its team subsequently joined the cabinet.
2. USDA is being rebuilt around producers, not its accumulated programs
Friedberg set the scale: 29 sub-agencies, more than 100,000 employees, 4,500 locations, and an annual budget exceeding $200 billion. Rollins calls it Lincoln’s “people’s department,” but says it became a catch-all spanning SNAP, forests and firefighters, rural loans, crop insurance, farm credit, and economic relief.
Her mandate is unambiguous: USDA needs “a realignment, a reconstruction, and a significant reorganization.” She says almost $6 billion of contracts have already been canceled, often $100,000 or $200,000 at a time, while reductions in force are intended to make the organization more efficient, effective, and flexible.
The reorientation is toward farmers and ranchers “all day, every day.” Rollins’s diagnosis is that family farms disappear annually, foreign sourcing grows, generational transfer becomes harder, and new entrants struggle to finance land or machinery—leaving government checks as survival tools rather than something producers actually want.
DOGE fits her deregulatory instincts: “It’s like all my dreams have come true.” She recalled Trump promising two repeals per new regulation, then achieving 22-to-one in the first year, 17-to-one in the next, 13-to-one afterward, and roughly 10-to-one on average across the first administration.
3. Nutrition spending has become both a health program and a fiscal target
Friedberg’s setup was stark: about 13% of Americans receive SNAP, the program costs $123 billion annually, and roughly $15 billion goes to soda; he also cited clinical obesity among 75% of recipients. Rollins’s broader figure was $370 million spent every day through USDA’s 13 nutrition programs.
Within an hour of being sworn in on February 13, Rollins sent letters to all 50 governors inviting waivers and experimentation. Her federalist framing is that states should design the programs, but her substantive direction is firm: “Absolutely not” to taxpayer-funded sugary drinks and junk food for food-insecure households.
Rollins connected the front-end subsidy to back-end healthcare costs: taxpayers finance poor nutrition, then Medicaid and the health system absorb diabetes and other chronic diseases. She cited 74% of adolescents as unable to pass the military-readiness test, making the food-health connection, in her telling, another national-security problem.
She acknowledged that industry representatives argue low-income recipients deserve the same purchasing freedom as everyone else. Her rebuttal is that public payment changes the equation: “We’re not using taxpayer dollars” for private purchases, and taxpayers also bear the downstream medical cost. She sees no need for “57 meetings with lobbyists” to resolve that principle, while distinguishing spending reform from shutting industries down: “No, of course not.”
4. Rollins has shifted from free-market primacy to food-security policy
Friedberg pressed the central contradiction: a lifelong small-government advocate now runs crop insurance, direct payments, commodity support, and SNAP. Rollins accepted the premise and described a genuine change of mind after studying how US products are treated abroad.
Her old view held that cheap Chinese goods improved living standards and represented markets working. Her new formulation is “not free markets for the sake of free markets, but fair markets for the sake of America”—first establish parity, then aim for freer markets.
The decisive mechanism is dependency. Rollins says tens of thousands of family farms have disappeared in the past decade; if the trajectory continues, America may become unable to feed itself. Once a country must rely on China, Brazil, or Argentina for food, she argues, “you’re done” as an independent world power. She also said China has been buying up a lot of US farmland and that major meatpackers are now owned by foreign entities.
That logic limits DOGE’s reach: “You can’t come in here and gut the crop insurance program.” Thousands of farmers could fail and foreign buyers—especially Chinese interests in her example—could acquire their land and operations. Her four-year goal is to open enough markets and restore enough profitability that support programs can then recede.
5. Trade disruption and labor scarcity are colliding on the farm
Rollins says farmers are “almost to a farmer” supportive of Trump despite immediate trade pain, because they believe he has their back. But she keeps the hedge: “They’re not going to be able to survive that long,” particularly row-crop producers facing historically thin margins and heavy export dependence.
Her case for renegotiation rests on a claimed $50 billion deterioration: she says the trade deficit moved from roughly zero under Trump’s first term to $50 billion under Biden. She cited unfavorable treatment of US beef by Argentina, US products by China, corn by Brazil, and pork by the UK, and plans to visit India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Peru, and the UK.
Friedberg’s strawberry example captured the domestic cost squeeze: total labor expense reportedly rose from $700 million before Covid to $2 billion. He also cited a declared 20% labor shortage among California farmers, which Rollins cautioned Californians may inflate. Rollins added the border comparison—about $2 an hour for Mexican growers versus $20-$23 in South Texas—asking how producers growing the same crops could compete.
Immigration enforcement creates a second constraint. Seasonal visas do not suit dairies because cows require milking 365 days a year, while specialty crops cannot automate like row crops. Rollins said Trump supports departure for people without legal status but also wants a labor mechanism for farmers; “the details of that are being worked out.”
6. The farm bill and cellular agriculture expose the coalition’s hardest trade-offs
The farm bill’s political bargain is lopsided: Rollins described farmer provisions as 15% and food stamps as 85%, with SNAP spending up 40% under Biden. Friedberg described the broader bill as roughly $1.5 trillion and framed SNAP as serving House interests while farm programs serve rural-state Senate interests, illustrating the horse-trading behind the package. Meanwhile, producer reference prices have not changed since the previous farm bill, making nutrition reform inseparable from urgently requested farm support.
Rollins has begun discussions with both parties, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, and conceded the bill becomes “a Christmas tree of sorts.” The discussion framed the desired direction as protecting farmers and ranchers while reforming SNAP and moving recipients toward employment and independence. Friedberg called that “a life of work filled with dignity”; Rollins agreed that “no one wants a handout.”
Friedberg’s final pushback concerned state bans on cellular agriculture: if cellular milk, eggs, cheese, fish, or chicken can be regulated for safety, why deny consumer choice and risk Europe-style stagnation? Rollins said she had not studied it enough, but her instinct favored room for innovation alongside confidence that consumers would choose “real American beef.”