When Canada sits down to negotiate agriculture trade issues with the Trump administration, it will be across the table from Doug Hoelscher of Iowa.
He was director of intergovernmental affairs in the previous Trump administration.
He is likely to be a busy man since Trump has scores of countries with across-the-board 10 per cent tariffs.
But China will be the top concern because it retaliated against Trump’s tariffs with its own tariffs on corn, pork and soybeans that more than double costs for those commodities.
Hoelscher was previously chief operating officer at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), where in January, 2023,,he took over the Trump-aligned think tank’s American Leadership Initiative.
The project was meant to build a “playbook” for each agency in the next administration to be “ready from day one with the right policy, personnel, and process,” Hoelscher said at the time.
