Conservative lawyer Brooke Rollins was confirmed Thursday as secretary of agriculture, placing a close ally of President Donald Trump into a key Cabinet position at a time when mass deportation plans could lead to farm labor shortages and tariffs could hit agricultural exports.
Rollins, who served as chief for domestic policy during Trump’s first administration, was confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate in a 72-28 vote.
Rollins will now lead a department tasked with overseeing nearly all aspects of the nation’s food system, including standards on farming practices and livestock rearing, federal subsidies to farmers or agribusinesses and setting nutrition standards for schools and public health officials nationwide.
The Department of Agriculture was at the center of Trump’s trade war in his last administration, when it increased subsidies to farmers growing the nation’s two biggest crops, corn and soybeans, after retaliatory tariffs were levied by China on the grains and international markets were disrupted. The United States is the world’s largest food exporter.
In her Senate confirmation hearing, Rollins acknowledged that Trump’s plans for the mass deportation of people in the country illegally could led to farm labor shortages. Growers of some vegetables and crops such as apples as well as dairy operations are especially dependent on migrant labor.
But Rollins said Americans support Trump’s plans and she would work to help the president while also trying to protect farmers.
“The president’s vision of a secure border and a mass deportation at a scale that matters is something I support,” Rollins said.
Rollins is a conservative legal activist and public policy analyst who most recently served as president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank that developed policy and cultivated a network of personnel for the second Trump administration.
Other AFPI alumni in the administration include the group’s chair, Linda McMahon, who was tapped to lead the Education Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, among others.
Rollins served as acting director of the White House Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s first term, where she oversaw a portfolio that included agriculture policy. She also served as president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.
