As Donald Trump returns to the White House, food and agriculture policy are shaping up to be key pieces of his agenda. To start to understand how he might tackle these issues, we’re digging into the industry ties and policy backgrounds of his senior officials and nominated cabinet members, who have varied – and often contradictory – positions on food and agriculture. The way they handle immigration, labor, environmental regulations and the social safety net will shape how Americans eat for the next four years.
Susie Wiles, chief of staff
Trump’s chief of staff began working as a lobbyist in 2017, representing groups such as the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, before joining Mercury Public Affairs in February 2022. There, she represented the tobacco company Swisher International and packaged-food companies such as Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé SA. That combination of clients is no surprise: big food companies are often owned by former tobacco executives – consider Kraft Foods, which was owned by Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes; and Nabisco, which was owned by RJ Reynolds, the maker of Camels. And Wiles has helped big tobacco lobby against restrictions on candy-flavored products in a move big food is eyeing to copy as the Food and Drug Administration considers regulations on added sugar.
Elon Musk, head of ‘government efficiency’
Billionaire and head of a “department of government efficiency” established by Trump, Elon Musk will probably sway agricultural policy through his budget-slashing recommendations and personal conflicts of interest: in January 2024, Musk’s Starlink and SpaceX launched a partnership with John Deere to provide internet connectivity to the company’s farm machinery. Musk has previously downplayed the role of farming in the climate crisis, telling the podcaster Joe Rogan that animals “don’t make a difference to global warming”.
Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture
Although she grew up on a farm and earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural development, Brooke Rollins, who awaits Senate confirmation as secretary of agriculture, has fairly limited experience in food policy – and more experience running the America First Policy Institute, a thinktank she founded in 2021 to advocate for Trump’s policies. The institute has called for Congress to restrict China’s (and other foreign investors’) ability to own US agricultural land.
Kailee Tkacz Buller, chief of staff at the Department of Agriculture
Just a day after Trump’s Make America Healthy Again inaugural ball featured a seed oil-free menu (Robert F Kennedy Jr has claimed that Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils such as canola and sunflower oils, despite no evidence to support that claim), the president named a former seed-oil executive to his Department of Agriculture. Kailee Tkacz Buller – who most recently served as the president and CEO of the National Oilseed Processors Association, a seed-oil trade group – will serve as chief of staff of the USDA. Before that, Buller served in the president’s prior administration, under the Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin (a vocal supporter of Trump), and worked at other industry groups such as the Edible Oil Producers Association, the Corn Refiners Association and the National Grocers Association.
Kristi Noem, secretary of homeland security
A lifelong rancher and farmer, the former South Dakota governor Kristi Noem worked to expand the meat industry in her state, shrink environmental protections and criticize China. As governor, she created a $5m grant program for meat processors, in part to reduce dependence on foreign “mega-packers” that import meat to the US from other countries. Speaking to the House agriculture committee about Chinese ownership of farmland, she said: “Over the years, I have witnessed this hostile communist country work to systematically take over more of America’s vital food supply chain.” She was confirmed to lead the Department of Homeland Security last week.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, secretary of labor
As a one-term House representative from Oregon from 2023 to 2025, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who awaits confirmation hearings, was more pro-union than most Republicans. She served on a bipartisan taskforce that issued recommendations for dealing with the agricultural labor shortage (including issuing federal heat standards to protect non-immigrant H-2A farm workers) and sponsoring the Pro Act, which expands workers’ rights to organize. She was raised in California’s Central valley and served as mayor of Oregon’s Happy Valley for nine years. She has also been remarkably supportive of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), advocating for Congress to extend protections for victims of food stamp theft, reduce application backlogs and boost access to healthy foods for food stamp recipients.
Doug Burgum, secretary of the interior
As governor of North Dakota, Burgum championed both biofuels (made from corn and soybeans) and his state’s oil and coal industries. Burgum, who awaits Senate confirmation, also signed legislation allowing corporations to buy land for livestock farms – which had been prohibited in the state since the Dust Bowl.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of health and human services
Kennedy, who has no training in public health, began campaigning alongside Trump saying the two would “make America healthy again”. Nutritionists and food policy advocates have noted that there is a degree of truth in his criticism of ultra-processed foods and the food industry – but that’s often buried amid conspiracy theories about pasteurized milk and vaccines. On the campaign trail, Kennedy, who faced Senate confirmation hearings this week, said he would fire all nutrition scientists at the FDA.
Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
Like Kennedy, Marty Makary has called the US food supply “poisoned” and spoken on Fox News about big food and pesticides. Makary, who needs Senate confirmation, is expected to work with Kennedy, if Kennedy also is confirmed, to revise the FDA’s definition of “healthy” foods, shape the dietary guidelines and change regulations around common food additives that are classified as “generally recognized as safe” by outside experts (or the companies that produce them) and therefore don’t require FDA approval. Previously, he has received funding from HHS to study obesity treatments.
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Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
A celebrity doctor who unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, Oz has criticized the beef industry and food dyes on his Tv program, The Dr Oz Show – but sometimes for overhyped and understudied reasons, like emerging research that food dyes might exacerbate ADHD (though the FDA announced in January it was banning some food dyes that have been linked to cancer). Oz, who needs Senate confirmation, has leaned deeper into conspiracy theories, such as that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for Covid-19, and promoted weight-loss scams, such as that green coffee bean extract can help patients lose weight (a scientific paper promising such results was later retracted). In 2014, the Democratic senator Claire McCaskill told him: “The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of a few products that you have called miracles.”
Tom Homan, border chief
Trump’s pick for “border czar”, Tom Homan, who does not need Senate confirmation, has praised the uptick in workplace immigration raids that occurred during Trump’s first term – including the arrests of more than 650 people at seven Mississippi poultry plants.
Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy
As head of America First Legal, a group he founded in 2021 to continue the legal agenda of Trump’s first presidency, Stephen Miller successfully sued the Biden administration’s agriculture department on behalf of a group of white farmers over the definition of socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers that Congress used to create a $4bn debt relief plan for Black farmers during the pandemic.
Russ Vought, director of the office of management and budget
Project 2025 architect Russ Vought has called for sweeping budget cuts across the federal government, including $633bn in cuts to commodity supports, crop insurance programs and Snap. In 2023, the Washington Post reported that Vought, who awaits Senate confirmation, had encouraged the GOP to cut “more than $400 billion in food stamps”.
Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health
The Stanford physician has conducted research on poverty, food insecurity and nutritional outcomes in children and adults; obesity and diabetes; and school meals. In 2004, Bhattacharya, who awaits Senate confirmation, authored a report for the USDA on the effectiveness of school breakfasts, and in 2014, he published a study on how a ban on Snap purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages could reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes prevalence.
Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Climate-change denier and Trump loyalist Lee Zeldin (who backed the president during his first impeachment hearing) was confirmed this week to lead the EPA, which regulates the use of pesticides. If his record criticizing actions to mitigate climate change, such as the Paris agreement and prohibitions on fracking, is any indicator, Zeldin is likely to pursue policies to deregulate pesticides – the majority of which are made from fossil fuels.
Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission
As FCC chair since 2017, Brendan Carr has spearheaded the agency’s new Precision Agriculture taskforce, which is focused on bringing high-speed internet to the US’s rural and agricultural regions so farmers can use satellites and other technology to monitor water use, cattle and their land. This may be an agency Elon Musk seeks involvement in to promote his Starlink satellites.
