July 14, 2023

Dear John:

The land of 10,000 lakes is a top five agriculture exporter and is blessed by mineral deposits that have helped build the national highway system and win world wars. Minnesota is well-positioned to build America’s future with what lies below our feet.

Congress can support that future by prioritizing policies that strengthen our supply chain and expand our export markets, which is exactly what I am fighting to do on the House Ways and Means Committee and especially through the Trade Subcommittee.

This week, Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) and I hosted a field hearing titled "Trade in America: Agriculture and Critical Supply Chains" at Schiefelbein Farms in Kimball to hear from producers and advocates with generations worth of knowledge on the agricultural and mineral industries in our great state.

Panelists included our host, Co-Owner of Schiefelbein Farms, Don Schiefelbein. As a national farming leader, Don shared with Committee Members how America’s farmers need more markets to export their crops and products around the world. We heard from former State Representative Tom Bakk, who represented the Iron Range, about how the Biden Administration’s war on American mining is keeping the U.S. dependent on foreign adversaries like China for critical supply chains, when we could be mining, and mining more safely, here at home. Brad Vold, who runs a fourth-generation dairy farm that supplies milk for Land O’ Lakes, shared his experiences with losing access to export markets, like Canada’s restrictions on American dairy, can be devastating for family farmers. Minnesota Farm Bureau Vice President Carolyn Olson, whose farm exports crops and hogs for products used around the world, talked to us about the importance of getting access to new export markets and also about the importance of holding our trade partners accountable.

The Ways and Means Committee is committed to hearing from people across the country about how we can best serve them. This was the fifth field hearing the committee has held and the second one focused specifically on trade. I want to thank all of the panelists, especially our host, Don, the public who attended, the Ways and Means Committee Members who came out to the great state of Minnesota to learn more from the experts about how to bolster American supply chains and combat China, and Chairman Smith for his leadership, for holding this hearing, and for his continued work listening to the needs of Americans.