The 100-member Senate approved Vilsack 92-7. He needed a simple majority in the Democratic-controlled chamber to be confirmed.

As secretary of the sprawling department, Vilsack will oversee about 100,000 employees responsible for food stamps, crop insurance, land conservation and other missions at a time U.S. farmers are benefiting from high soybean and corn prices but hunger is on the rise throughout America.

Vilsack has said the White House wants to tap a pool of funds from the agency’s Commodity Credit Corporation to support on-farm efforts to fight climate change, a policy priority for new President Joe Biden.

The Depression-era program of up to US$30 billion in annual funding was tapped by the Trump administration to distribute billions of dollars in aid to cover farmers’ lost sales due to trade wars, primarily with China.

Vilsack must also confront the coronavirus pandemic, which has reduced restaurant demand for farm products and led to long lines at food banks.

“We have a lot of work to do as we overcome obstacles created by the COVID-19 pandemic,” American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall said in a statement after the vote.

Some slaughterhouses shut temporarily in spring 2020 due to outbreaks of the coronavirus among workers, pushing up meat prices and leading to shortages of certain products.

“We found that when one or two processing facilities shut down during COVID, it created havoc in the market,” Vilsack said during a Senate committee hearing on Feb. 2. “We can’t have that.”

Groups like the National Black Farmers Association raised concerns about Vilsack’s nomination, saying alleged discriminatory practices continued at USDA under his previous leadership.

Vilsack, who was Iowa governor from 1999 to 2007, said at the Feb. 2 hearing that there can be no tolerance for discrimination.

— Tom Polansek reports on agriculture and ag commodities for Reuters from Chicago.

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The Biden transition office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Vilsack, who led the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under former president Barack Obama, could not immediately be reached. His spokeswoman, Regina Black, declined to comment “as an official announcement hasn’t been made.”

Vilsack’s return to USDA is likely to be applauded by Midwestern states that produce the bulk of commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat, and prefer him to someone from another region of the country.

The Farm Belt was battered by President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and waivers that exempted oil refiners from obligations to use corn-based ethanol. But Midwestern farmers also received an unprecedented amount of direct farm subsidies under Trump even as coronavirus stimulus for millions of other Americans stalled in Congress.

Vilsack, who is chief executive of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, actively campaigned for Biden in farm states, acting as his rural and agriculture adviser during the election.

Iowa’s governor from 1999 to 2007, Vilsack is seen by establishment Democrats as a politically safe choice, largely because of his moderate politics, previous experience and long-standing, friendly relationships with large-scale farmers.

A coalition of progressive food, farming and environmental advocacy groups promoted rival candidates.

Top among them was Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, who would have been the first Black woman to fill the role and was expected to increase the department’s focus on small farmers, global environmental changes, and racial and economic diversity.

Biden has selected Fudge to be secretary of housing and urban development, Politico reported.

“Vilsack is not what the USDA and our country needs to help make U.S. agriculture more sustainable and resilient in the time of climate crisis,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the Center for Food Safety.

Among Canadian farmers, Vilsack is likely to be remembered as one of the Obama administration’s point people on cross-border matters such as U.S. country-of-origin labelling on meat; access for U.S. farmers to Canada’s supply-managed dairy, egg and poultry markets; and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, from which Trump later withdrew U.S. participation.

— Reporting for Reuters by Eric Beech, Caroline Stauffer, Tom Polansek and P.J. Huffstutter. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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A trade delegation from Minnesota, one of the largest U.S. agriculture states, vowed to carry on with its planned visit to Cuba next week. “We’re going to continue to beat the drum and let them (the Trump administration) know that trade is good for agriculture,” said Kevin Paap, a farmer in the delegation.

Trump signed a presidential directive on Friday rolling back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the Communist-ruled country after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes.

Farm groups saw the move as a step backward in what had been an improving trade relationship between the two countries which are just 145 km apart, even though agriculture is not directly targeted.

U.S. law exempts food from a decades-old embargo on U.S. trade with Cuba, but cumbersome rules on how transactions were executed have made deals difficult and costly.

Since Obama’s detente, substantial headway has been made, however, with shipments of U.S. corn and soybeans to Cuba soaring 420 per cent in 2016 from a year earlier to 268,360 tonnes, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows.

Through the first four months of 2017, total shipments of U.S. grain and soy were 142,860 tonnes, up from 49,090 tonnes during the same period of 2016.

While the quantities are dwarfed by total U.S. exports — nearly 56 million tonnes of corn alone last year — the added volumes were welcome as farmers face a fourth year of languishing grain prices and crimped incomes.

“At a time when the farm economy is struggling, we ask our leaders in Washington not to close doors on market opportunities for American agriculture,” Wesley Spurlock, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said in a statement.

The group sees an opportunity for US$125 million more a year in trade to Cuba.

Trump’s move could cut off near-term sales and stymie economic development that would drive longer-term demand growth, said Tom Sleight, president of the U.S. Grains Council, a grain trade development organization, in a statement.

“Neither of those outcomes is favourable for the U.S. ag sector or the Cuban people,” he added.

Paap said the U.S. should be doing more to encourage exports.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve made some advances and built those relationships,” he said.

— Karl Plume reports on agriculture and agribusiness for Reuters from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago.

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Republican Donald Trump calls NAFTA the worst trade deal signed by the U.S. and Democrat Hillary Clinton has signaled a change of position on the 1994 pact she supported when it became law under her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

The agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is often used for political grist in U.S. election campaigns but altering it is a major concern for export-oriented Canada.

In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on renegotiating the treaty with tougher labour and environmental standards, a pledge that fell to the wayside when he became president in 2009.

But the idea has taken hold more strongly in 2016 and Mexico has said it is ready to update the treaty. Canada has said NAFTA is in the best interest of all three countries.

If Canada were forced to renegotiate, one issue it could target is the pact’s investor-state dispute settlement provision.

The U.S. wanted it included in the original deal to protect U.S. investments in Mexico. It has since been used by U.S. companies to sue Canadian federal and provincial governments. TransCanada Corp. is using the provision to seek billions from the U.S. government for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline.

That would probably be an area of mutual concern for Canada and the U.S. given those unintended consequences, said Derek Burney, Canada’s former U.S. ambassador, who was involved in the original negotiations.

Labour mobility, a concern for Canadian technology companies, could be improved by updating the list of professions that allows workers to relocate between countries.

“We fell short in terms of what we wanted to achieve on labour mobility in the NAFTA,” said John Weekes, Canada’s chief negotiator, who added Canada should also push for improved access to the U.S. government procurement market.

Reopening NAFTA could give the Canadian government cover to phase out a domestic supply management system for the politically powerful dairy industry that has come under international criticism, negotiators said.

“I’d be secretly delighted if they came hard at us on supply management,” said Burney. “Given the dairy industry and its weight in the United States, it’s not easy to dismiss.”

The system controls dairy prices and production, which critics say drives up consumers prices. The industry says it allows farmers to get stable prices, and noted Canada has preserved the system while negotiating several trade agreements.

Still, former negotiators warned Canada would not be working from a position of strength as it sought concessions.

“Ignoring everything else, yes, there could be an opportunity there,” said Michael Hart, who advised on the original negotiations. “But in the real world, I’d be very cautious.”

While Clinton has said she would rework the trade pact, Trump’s threat to withdraw is a bigger concern in Canada.

“If we’re in a situation where people are threatening they’re going to walk out of trade agreements unless they can be renegotiated, then I think we’re in a situation where it would be very difficult,” said Weekes.

— Leah Schnurr is a Reuters reporter based in Ottawa. Additional reporting for Reuters by David Ljunggren.

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The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said China’s “market price support” for these grains was estimated to be nearly $100 billion above the WTO limits and constitutes an artificial government incentive for Chinese farmers to increase output (all figures US$).

“These programs distort Chinese prices, undercut American farmers, and clearly break the limits China committed to when they joined the WTO,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement. “We will not stand by when our trading partners fail to follow the rules like everyone else.”

The action marks the Obama administration’s 23rd trade enforcement challenge lodged with the WTO since 2009, and the 14th against China.

In a statement, President Barack Obama said the administration has “won every case that’s been decided” by the WTO.

“We’re confident the case we’re bringing today will be no different: it should bring an end to China’s illegal subsidies, remove significant barriers on American exports, and level the playing field for American farmers and their families who rely on the rice, wheat, and corn industries and the hundreds of thousands of jobs they help support,” Obama said.

In May, the administration sought a WTO dispute settlement panel to rule on its claims that China is unfairly continuing anti-dumping duties on U.S. broiler chicken products. That dispute is continuing, however, and China’s commerce ministry announced on Aug. 22 that it would extend the duties on U.S. broiler chickens for another five years.

Obama added that passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was needed to raise trading standards for an evolving global economy and warned that China was negotiating its own Asia trade deal.

“Unless we act now to set our own high standards, the fast-growing Asia-Pacific will be forced to play by lower-standard rules that we didn’t set. We can’t let that happen,” Obama said.

The USTR’s office said that according to its analysis, China’s domestic price supports for wheat, Indica rice, Japonica rice and corn have exceeded the 8.5 per cent “de minimis” level allowed under the WTO commitment for every year since 2012.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that U.S. agricultural exports to China, now more than $20 billion a year, could be larger if these supports were not in place.

— David Lawder is a Reuters correspondent covering international trade issues from Washington, D.C.

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“We were pleased to learn from the president today that at least 250,000 farm workers (and at least 125,000 California farm workers) will be eligible for deportation relief under his executive action,” Rodriguez said in a statement.

The union held a “mock Thanksgiving feast” in front of the White House on Wednesday, and Rodriguez met with Obama, the union said.

“The president committed to working with UFW to do everything possible to make sure that every farm worker who qualifies for the program gets enrolled,” Rodriguez said.

In a speech Thursday evening, Obama is expected to announce executive directives to remove the threat of deportation for as many as five million of the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the U.S.

— Reporting for Reuters by Roberta Rampton in Washington, D.C.

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