‘But What Is the Plan?’ Fox’s Varney Grills Trump Secretary on Rising Farming Costs

Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney pressed Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins Thursday on how she planned to help American farmers in the face of rising fertilizer costs.

Varney played a clip from economist Steve Moore about how the Iran war and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz has caused fertilizer prices to skyrocket in which Moore said:

It’s not just oil that goes through there, it is also about half of the world’s fertilizer. There is a fertilizer shortage right now. and by the way, this is planting season for our farmers who are planting the rice, and the soy beans, and the corn, etc. So, they need more fertilizer, the price has risen significantly. If we don’t get the strait open, you are going to see — farmers are complaining that the costs have really risen, and when that happens they charge more for their products come in the fall.

Varney asked Rollins, “Do you have a plan to mitigate this fertilizer problem?”

Rollins said she’s been having daily meetings with the White House and fertilizer CEOs on the issue.

“The good news — because of the President Trump’s energy independence policy, America has plenty of fertilizer,” Rollins said, before agreeing with Moore that the price increase “has been significant.”

“During the Biden years fertilizer had already jumped 40%. So, our farmers are really feelings this. This is a really, really tough time for fertilizer ,for those that didn’t prebook in the fall,” Rollins said before mentioning that Trump has temporarily lifted a 100-year-old law called the Jones Act.

“But, what’s the plan?” Varney pushed. “What is the plan to deal with rising fertilizer costs that will lead to rising — You’ve had lots of meetings. What’s the plan?”

“So, that’s what I was walking through,” Rollins said. “So, for the short term, lifting the Jones Act, which is very important. Opening up additional lines, more lines from Venezuela. We are making permitting easier so we could move it more quickly. We have had meeting after meeting, Lee Zeldin at EPA lifted some diesel exhaust fuel rules so that that makes it cheaper, the urea here in America.”

“For the short-term we’ve gotten our arms around it,” Rollins said. “I am in Missouri tomorrow with some farmers talking about it more in depth. We will be hyper-focused on bringing those costs down and having a back-end opportunity that we’ll be talking about.”

Watch the clip above via Fox Business Network.

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