00:00So you say that America's farmers and ranchers understand there's going to be this short time
00:03of uncertainty and there were obviously financial help for farmers and ranchers during the first
00:09Trump administration. Take a listen to North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis.
00:15Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right need to talk about
00:21farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy. They don't have time. So we've got to be crisp
00:26on this implementation. Otherwise we can do damage that's irreparable to farmers and businesses.
00:32What's your response to Senator Tillis?
00:37So the bottom line is this. In the last four years the cost of inputs for our farmers went
00:42up 30 percent. In the last four years we had an agriculture export deficit that increased from
00:50zero when President Trump left to 49 billion dollars. Our farming and our farmers and ranchers
00:57are hurting. They are operating at profits of margins of profit that are thinner than they
01:02have in a really long time due to the policies of the last four years. But to Senator Tillis's point
01:10we have to be prepared that if there is longer term damage and this president has been very
01:16focused on this and I've been saying it pretty much ad nauseum for the last 50 days since I've
01:20been in office is that we will make sure that we have the funds in working with the senators
01:27and working with the appropriators that we can do what we did last time which I think
01:31Secretary Perdue last time spent about 25 to 28 billion dollars to mitigate some of the fallout
01:37from the last tariffs for the short term. The long term the tariffs worked. I mean the research
01:42shows that we had an increase in productivity increase in jobs etc. until frankly the Biden
01:48administration stopped enforcing some of those the deal once we left office in 2021. All right
01:54Secretary Rollins thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your your time and
01:58your expertise. Thank you Jake.
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