Fox News host corners Trump official on plan for soaring prices

Fox News is typically a safe space for President Donald Trump and his administration, but the waters got choppy for one of his Cabinet secretaries, per Mediaite, as host Stuart Varney pressed her about a plan to tackle soaring prices.

On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins appeared as a guest on Fox Business, where Varney brought up the struggles American farmers are currently facing as fertilizer prices skyrocket. While much has been made about the impact of the Strait of Hormuz's closure on oil prices, it has also been a disaster for the cost of fertilizers that are key to agricultural industries, as roughly one-third of the global supply of them also goes through the waterway.

Varney began by playing remarks from economist Steve Moore on the situation.

"It’s not just oil that goes through there, it is also about half of the world’s fertilizer," Moore said. "There is a fertilizer shortage right now, and by the way, this is planting season for our farmers who are planting the rice and the soy beans, and the corn, etc. So, they need more fertilizer. The price has risen significantly. If we don’t get the Strait open, you are going to see — farmers are complaining that the costs have really risen, and when that happens, they charge more for their products come the fall."

Following that clip, Varney pressed Rollins on whether there is "a plan to mitigate this fertilizer problem," to which the secretary said that daily meetings are happening between the White House and fertilizer CEOs.

“The good news — because of President Trump’s energy independence policy, America has plenty of fertilizer,” Rollins said, while also admitting that the price increase “has been significant.”

As many Trump allies are prone to do, she also attempted to pin blame for the issue on the Biden administration.

"During the Biden years, fertilizer had already jumped 40%. So, our farmers are really feeling this. This is a really, really tough time for fertilizer, for those that didn’t prebook in the fall."

Noting that the question had not strictly been answered, Varney pressed again: “But, what’s the plan?... You’ve had lots of meetings. What’s the plan?”

“So, that’s what I was walking through,” Rollins responded. “So, for the short term, lifting the Jones Act, which is very important, opening up additional lines, more lines from Venezuela. We are making permitting easier so we could move it more quickly. We have had meeting after meeting, Lee Zeldin at EPA lifted some diesel exhaust fuel rules, so that makes it cheaper... For the short term, we’ve gotten our arms around it. I am in Missouri tomorrow with some farmers talking about it more in depth. We will be hyper-focused on bringing those costs down and having a back-end opportunity that we’ll be talking about.”

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