Federal

President Trump plans to propose a reorganization of the federal government as early as Thursday that includes a possible merger of the Education and Labor Departments, coupled with a reshuffling of other domestic agencies to make them easier to cut or revamp, according to administration officials briefed on the proposal. Mr. Trump and his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, the architect of the plan, have sought to redefine as welfare subsistence benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and housing aid. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. producers of pork, already saddled with duties enacted in an earlier round of the escalating trade dispute with China, are bracing for further pain after Beijing hit the products with additional tariffs due to come into effect next month.  China implemented a 25 percent duty on most U.S. pork items on April 2, and a 15 percent tariff on a range of fruits and nuts, in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products. Last week it included both categories in a second round of tariffs to be imposed on July 6. [node:read-more:link]

pecial agents from U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) have arrested 146 workers at the Fresh Mark meat processing plant in Salem, Ohio, for alleged immigration violations, the agency said. ICE said it identified the employees as part of a year-long investigation into whether the company hired illegal aliens at its meat processing and packaging plants. Search warrants were served at Fresh Mark locations in Massillon and Canton, Ohio, as well as the Salem plant. [node:read-more:link]

Threats of Chinese tariffs on U.S. agricultural imports shook the U.S. agricultural sector. Attention focused on the potential loss of farm income, with a surge of short articles published in the popular media. To help provide a deeper analysis on the trade policy impact, we organize this China theme issue with five articles: Zheng et al. and Taheripour and Tyner estimate the loss on multiple relevant crops using a partial equilibrium model and a general equilibrium model, respectively. Both studies focus on soybeans, while wheat, pork, and a few other commodities are also considered. [node:read-more:link]

Goodlatte-sponsored bill goes down as leaders look to round up support on second measure. The House on Thursday rejected, 193-231, an immigration bill conservatives favor, an outcome Republican leadership had been predicting for months, even as House leaders delayed a vote on a compromise immigration bill. The vote on final passage of the compromise measure is being moved to Friday to provide more time to answer members' questions about the bill, a GOP aide confirmed. The measure by Judiciary Chairman Robert W. [node:read-more:link]

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed search warrants at four Fresh Mark meat processing locations in Ohio and made 146 arrests at the company’s Salem, Ohio, location for immigration violations. The arrests are a culmination of a year-long investigation into evidence that Fresh Mark willfully and knowingly hired illegal aliens using identification that belonged to US citizens. [node:read-more:link]

While the U.S. has a very vigorous inspection system and some of the best sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions in the world, we have seen over and over that it is impossible to keep insects, weeds, and diseases out. According to the National Beef Association, we currently do not have the resources to deal with a large outbreak of FMD. The current FMD vaccine bank in the United States is located at Plum Island, NY, and only contains enough vaccine to meet the need of a small, confined FMD outbreak. [node:read-more:link]

A $50 billion list of possible U.S. trade targets announced in April included soybeans, light aircraft, orange juice, whiskey and beef. China’s government responded quickly to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hike on Chinese goods by announcing Friday it will immediately impose penalties of “equal strength” on U.S. products. The Commerce Ministry said it also was scrapping deals to buy more American farm goods and other exports as part of efforts to defuse a sprawling dispute over its trade surplus and technology policy. [node:read-more:link]

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its intent to regulate lab-grown meat—a declaration that provides some clues about how the federal government will treat a new technology that upends some notions about food and agriculture. In some ways, it’s unremarkable that lab-grown meat would fall under FDA’s purview. It’s the federal agency that’s already in charge of ensuring the safety of most foods, from Hot Pockets to baby carrots and coconut water. What is surprising, though, is FDA’s signaling that it wants domain over a meat product. [node:read-more:link]

The Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative Gregg Doud was also at the World Pork Expo, he says there will be consequences before a deal is struck. "There is, or will be, retaliation against U.S. agricultural exports because of what we're doing in other areas unrelated to agriculture. That retaliation is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood, depending on how you slice it and dice it, over $20 billion of our $140 billion in ag exports." [node:read-more:link]