Sonny unscathed (Bloomberg): As one Trump official after another flames out, USDA’s Sonny Perdue has managed to implement his agenda without much scrutiny.
The fight for tariff exemptions (New York Times): Trade associations, including the American Soybean Association and other agriculture interests, are scrambling to get exemptions from Trump’s proposed tariffs.
.
House pioneer passes (New York Times): Rep. Louise Slaughter, the first woman to chair the House Rules Committee and a “leader of a years-long drive for a law to curb the widespread use of antibiotics in healthy cattle, pigs and chickens,” died in a Washington hospital.
Trump to Mississippi River: Drop dead (Washington Post): President Trump’s infrastructure package “mostly scales back the government’s long-running role” in waterway maintenance for the Mississippi River, a vital conduit for farm exports.
Bill shifts U.S. food aid toward local purchase (Chattanoogan): Companion bills in the House and Senate would allow up to 75 percent of U.S. food aid to be purchased near hunger hot spots, ending the decades-old requirement that it rely on U.S.-grown food.