During Tuesday’s Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned Luke Lindberg, nominee to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, about preserving and expanding agriculture export markets.
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00:00Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I guess I'll start with you, Mr. Westhill, just to finish up here.
00:08At its founding, President Lincoln referred to USDA as the People's Department.
00:14As Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, if confirmed, you would be responsible for ensuring USDA and its agencies comply with all civil rights laws.
00:23If confirmed, what is your plan to ensure compliance with civil rights laws, especially with respect to farm programs, and will you work to rebuild the relationship with farmers who have been involved with civil rights issues and have long distrusted the department?
00:40Senator, thank you for the question. I'll start with sort of the latter part of the question.
00:44I'm absolutely committed to building relationships with all customers and employees at USDA.
00:50Any who want to do business with USDA should be able to do that on equal footing, and you have my commitment there.
00:56When it comes to enforcing civil rights and ensuring folks understand their rights and responsibilities around those things, I don't think it's rocket science.
01:03It's a pretty clear playbook.
01:06One, communicate from the top to the bottom that civil rights will be vigorously enforced, that it's a priority.
01:12Secondly, ensure that folks understand their rights and responsibilities.
01:15You know, it's important to have a robust, proactive prevention technique, you know, plan.
01:23And then, finally, to hold folks accountable, to really show that you're enforcing those civil rights.
01:29So, when opportunities come to investigate very deeply any issues that come to light, that you're doing those things,
01:37and that everyone at USDA, the employees and the customers, understand that you're taking those things seriously.
01:42Okay, the 2018 Farm Bill requires the USDA in law to conduct civil rights impact analysis with respect to USDA employment programs activities.
01:53If confirmed, will you commit to analyzing adverse or disproportionate impact with respect to proposed program changes or reorganizations at USDA,
02:04including conducting a civil rights impact analysis?
02:06I think it's critical to ensure that any major programs at USDA are evaluated for civil rights issues.
02:15And I'm committed to ensuring that we do that at USDA, as I did in this role in the first term.
02:22Okay, thank you.
02:23Mr. Lindbergh, what opportunities do you see for market expansion in other countries for American ag products?
02:30Senator, thanks again for the question, and thank you for spending some time with me prior to this.
02:35I appreciated our conversation leading up to this hearing today.
02:38I believe there's a number of markets that American agriculture producers should be taking advantage of that are currently not at full capacity.
02:47India would be my top priority for a market that we should be doing better in, 1.4 billion consumers in India.
02:54I'm excited to hear this morning that Secretary Besant is making progress on a trade deal with India.
03:02But one of the markets that concerns me the most is the $23.6 billion trade deficit we have with the European Union.
03:08And the basket of goods that we produce and the basket of goods they produce is too eerily similar.
03:14And the trade deficit is too wide that we should have more market access for our producers in the European Union.
03:20Two examples.
03:22And hopefully we can do a trade agreement with other countries.
03:27I think you all know I was a fan of the USMCA.
03:31There's still work that has to be done on dairy and other improvements.
03:35But to me, that's the way we should be going instead of where we are.
03:38And by the way, I was also pleased with the change in India and frozen Turkey during the last administration.
03:44I understand that's still in place.
03:46But I recently led 18 of our colleagues in pressing the U.S. trade representative on the impacts that the president's tariff agenda will have on farmers seeking clarity.
03:57And I'd like to ask that the letter be entered in the record.
04:01Without objection.
04:02So I think you know, Mr. Lindbergh, there's many, this is a Minnesota euphemism, strong personalities surrounding the president and giving advice on trade.
04:12How will you advocate for American farmers and be a voice for preserving and expanding new export markets?
04:19Thank you, Senator.
04:21And I did read the letter you submitted to Ambassador Greer.
04:24And I look forward to working with the ambassador.
04:26When I was chief of staff at the Export-Import Bank, Ambassador Greer was chief of staff at USTR, the first Trump administration.
04:33I have similarly several colleagues in the Commerce Department incoming, as well as in the Treasury Department, which are the three lead organizations right now on trade negotiations.
04:43I look forward to working closely with each of them to ensure that our farmers' voices are well represented in those discussions.
04:49And I appreciated our discussion on export promotion programs.
04:54And I know you talked to the chairman about that.
04:57Will you also commit to ensuring that RAP, the Regional Agriculture Promotion Program, remains in place for export market development?
05:06I will absolutely commit to the fact that we need to have programs that help reduce our trade deficit, and the export promotion programs help us do that.
05:16How can USDA work to make domestic specialty crop growers more competitive when facing cheaper imports?
05:23And I think we all know maybe this shouldn't even be called specialty crops.
05:27It's like potatoes, tomatoes, things we eat might be a better way to describe it.
05:31Could you just answer about the cheaper imports, what's going on on that front?
05:37Sure.
05:38So our specialty crop producers absolutely should be exporting more in their own way.
05:45Secretary Rollins recently announced that the technical expertise that the Foreign Ag Service offers to our specialty crop producers
05:51and the foreign markets they sell into to provide making sure that there are no non-tariff barriers on those export markets
05:59is something that I look forward to working on.