La Crosse Tribune: Van Orden, U.S. Agriculture secretary highlight dairy, trade priorities during Onalaska visit
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins visited Onalaska’s Morning Star Dairy Farm on Monday, touring the facility and participating in a roundtable attended by a group of La Crosse area farmers.
Rollins — joined by U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and the undersecretary of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, Mindy Brashears — touted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Trump administration trade policies as key to securing farmers’ financial future.
“Dairy farms like this one are truly the backbone of America's economy and our food supply,” Rollins said. “And the entire Trump administration is 100% committed to supporting these farms every day.”
Rollins and Van Orden applauded a gamut of policy changes supported by President Donald Trump, from the tariff regime to reintroducing full-fat dairy into the public school system.
Rollins’ USDA and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS released updated recommendations for nutritional health, which included full-fat dairy like whole milk into people’s diets. President Donald Trump also signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act in January, which lifts the ban on whole milk in federal lunch programs.
“On the hill, this law is a huge win for our dairy farmers, our consumers and the health of American children, and really returned to as it should have been,” Rollins said.
More impactful, though, has been the president’s trade policies and legislative achievements.
Of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed in 2025, Rollins said “there was more agriculture in that bill than in the history of any bill, ever.”
The bill, which Rollins also falsely claimed was the “largest tax cut in American history,” did extend dairy farmers’ insurance coverage, expand tax relief and direct $233 million per year on animal disease research and response.
Rollins lauded Van Orden for his support of Trump’s megabill as well as the upcoming farm bill — an omnibus bill, enacted every six or seven years, that governs an array of agricultural and food programs.
Van Orden promised the farm bill would hit the House floor and pass within the week.
Agriculture is “the one industry that should touch every single American at least twice a day,” Van Orden said. “And that makes it, in my opinion, the most important industry we have.”
And, “after zero trade deals” in the Biden administration, Rollins said, the Trump administration is creating a new trade system that will pay off for farmers.
In the year since she was sworn in as secretary, Rollins has gained ground. The USDA predicted in March that they would run a $29 billion trade deficit in fiscal year 2026, which is a 41% drop from the previous year’s figure, $49 billion. The last year the U.S. ran a farm trade surplus was in fiscal year 2022.
Still, experts caution against fully crediting the government with the trade deficit, when so many other factors — like the strength of the U.S. dollar or demand for high-quality foreign goods — can influence it.
American farm exports have generally increased, but naturally, Rollins was focused on dairy. She said the USDA expected dairy exports to be up by 17% in 2026, touting increased exports to Indonesia and Costa Rica, which have both opened up dairy trade with the United States within the last year.
But even Rollins acknowledged that “the president’s America First trade policies have been challenging.”
Dairy producers across the state expect another difficult year of market conditions, largely stemming from the uncertainty caused by ever-changing tariffs and trade disputes, not to mention the high price of gas driven by America’s war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Some things are changing, and we have to understand that reorganizing an entire global trade network, which is what President Trump is doing, takes time,” Van Orden said. “But we've been listening very, very hard.”
The USDA faces other challenges. When asked about the 24,000 USDA workers fired from their positions through 2025, Rollins spoke instead about the agency’s decision to “move far away from” spending on climate change programs and diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Anytime there's significant change of the status quo, it's going to be clunky, but if it doesn't happen now, under this president, it likely will never happen.”