| House Ag Advances Reconciliation Bill Out of Committee Starting Tuesday night and lasting until Wednesday evening, the House Agriculture Committee held a marathon markup of its budget reconciliation text, complying with the instructions given by the House Budget Committee in H. Con. Res. 14 Section 2001(b)(1) to cut a net of $230 billion within the Committee’s jurisdiction. After nearly a 15-hour process, the Committee ended up reporting the bill favorably out of Committee on a party-line vote of 29-25. While the Committee was instructed to cut $230 billion, the bill reflected a score closer to $300 billion in cuts in order to reinvest the additional $60-70 billion in savings across all titles of the farm bill except for Title IV (Nutrition), where most cuts were focused. Republicans defended the rescissions to the nutrition title, claiming that the increasing administrative costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) should require state governments to become more responsible when administering and regulating food assistance programs, specifically with regard to enforcing work requirements. Additionally, Republicans highlighted that modernizing the farm safety net for farmers and ranchers must be at the forefront of the reconciliation bill. Democrats heavily criticized the Republicans’ bill, arguing that the SNAP program helps families access food and reducing the nutrition title’s funding would decrease benefits and cause many to go hungry, and emphasized that many states would not be able to adequately cover the cost share of the program. Moreover, Democrats stated that sufficiently funding SNAP would increase food demand, benefiting agricultural producers. From a commodity lens, the bill included increases to reference prices and enhancements to the crop insurance title. Additionally, funding for trade promotion priorities such as the Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) program was doubled, as they were in the last Congress’s farm bill. In addition to Ag, the House Ways and Means Committee advanced its bill extending the provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as several other favorable agricultural tax-related measures. Now that all the Committees given reconciliation instructions have held their individual markups, the House Budget Committee will assemble and ready the bill for consideration. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has indicated that he intends to have the House Rules Committee consider the bill next week, with the hopes of being able to then call a vote on the House floor before the Memorial Day recess. Many Republican holdouts remain, making the bill’s pathway forward towards passage uncertain. You can find the text for the Committee’s print here, and can watch part 1 of the markup here and part 2 here. White House Announces Trade Deals in the Works with China and the U.K. Last weekend, talks regarding a potential U.S./China trade agreement began to surface. On Monday, the White House announced that a potential trade deal with China is in the works that would significantly reduce the current tariffs on trade for 90 days while negotiations between the two countries continue. With this, the U.S. plans to reduce its reciprocal tariffs on China from 145% to 30%, while China is cutting its tariffs on US imports from 125% to 10%. The temporary de-escalation of these tariffs aims to further negotiations toward a more comprehensive trade deal between the US and China. Also recently, President Trump announced a trade agreement between the U.S. and the U.K., with the intent of strengthening relationships and market access for American agriculture. President Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks at the end of last week and reached an agreement on the new deal, which is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks. It is understood that the deal will aim to streamline the customs process for U.S. agriculture, eliminating many of the non-tariff trade barriers that restrict U.S. agriculture’s access to the U.K. market. These negotiations do not impact the overall 10% tariff on British imports, which remains the baseline, like many other countries following the April 2 announcement. |
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