Heading into the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump announced a 64-member Agriculture and Rural Advisory Committee, a standard way for campaigns to showcase rural support and demonstrate concern for a constituency. On Wednesday, the Environmental Working Group reported that 15 of the committee members have received a combined $2.2 million in Trump tariff payments.
The largest of the payments, $874,000, went to Charlotte Kelly, co-owner with her husband of a 14,000-acre cotton farm and a cotton gin in Tennessee, said the EWG, which based its analysis on USDA data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Former North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a wheat and soybean grower, received $256,668. Iowa farmer Ron Heck, a former president of the American Soybean Association, received $168,147, said the green group.
Six members of the 2016 committee became Trump administration officials, including Terry Branstad, U.S. ambassador to China; Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; and agriculture undersecretaries Bill Northey and Ted McKinney. None of them received trade war payments, according to the EWG. Kip Tom was one of the largest farmers in Indiana before his appointment as U.S. ambassador to the UN’s food and agriculture agencies in Rome. He is listed as a member of Tom Farms LLC, which received $509,000 in payments, according to the EWG.