While attending the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, Farm Director KC Shepard caught up with American Farm Bureau Foundation’s Vice President of Public Policy Sam Keiffer to talk about the recent presidential election.
According to Keiffer, industry leaders are keenly focused on who Trump’s appointees will be.
“There are a lot of appointments that we don’t know, yet,” he said. “But we look forward to making sure that the agricultural conversations occur in a manner that is amenable to bipartisan policy conversations because that is what the farm bill is, and that’s what USDA does. We want the folks who are in place to remain committed to focusing on the science.”
Keiffer admitted that historically, farm bills have been difficult to accomplish, and the situation with the current farm bill is no different. He said that if a farm bill cannot be completed during the congressional lame duck session, an extension will be necessary to continue the outdated one designed in 2018, meaning that the new farm bill would have to start over at ground zero with all new players and a different budget arrangement.
“The new administration is going to come in focused on the first 100 days,” he said. “They also have cabinet secretary appointments to make, judicial appointments in the Senate to confirm; there is a long list of things that need to happen in 2025. There are more reasons to capture a farm bill in 2024 than to wait.”
According to Keiffer, AFBF has worked with the Trump Administration throughout his campaign and is working with them as they transition into the Whitehouse. He looks forward to the continuing relationship.
“Governing is different than campaigning,” he said. “We need to make sure that the coalition that is in place and the leaders that are put in place also bring with them good number twos and number threes in that organization chart to help make sure we continue to have the safest, most affordable, and most efficient agricultural industry on the globe.”
AFBF is looking forward to the return of Trump’s enthusiasm for global trade shown during his first term in office. “There is a lot of energy around the trade discussions. There is concern, but also a lot of energy,” he commented. “There has been frustration in these last four years that there have been a lot of conversations on the trade front, but not a lot delivered in terms of bonified trade agreements and market access. We anticipate that President Trump will be more engaged on that global scale, but he is also using tariffs as a bargaining chip and that does have some repercussions throughout the agricultural community.”
In addition to global markets, Keiffer looks forward to Trump’s tax policy. “The tax cuts and jobs act was extremely helpful to many farm family checkbooks, and many of those provisions are set to expire in 2025, so we have been gearing up for well over a year to set the deck for some significant tax conversations. The Republican trifecta with the Whitehouse, the Senate, and the House makes those conversations a little bit easier.”
