January 12, 2017

Trump Somehow Found Time Today to Meet With Monsanto Execs

And yet he still hasn’t picked an agriculture secretary, the only open cabinet post.

<a href="http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/rural-conservative-values-gm615392738-106709525?st=_p_trump%20farm" target="_blank">Coast-to-coast</a>/iStock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Amid the furor surrounding allegations of covert ties with Russian intelligence figures as well as his first press conference since winning the election, President-elect Donald Trump found time in his hectic Wednesday schedule to meet with two towering figures in the agriculture world, reports Fox Business Daily. But the main conversation topic wasn’t the job opening atop the US Department of Agriculture, the sole cabinet spot awaiting an appointment from Trump. 

A Monsanto spokesperson confirmed that the two execs “had a productive meeting with President-Elect Trump and his team to share their views on the future of the agriculture industry and its need for innovation.”

Rather, the meeting involved German chemical giant Bayer’s $66 billion buyout of US seed/agrichemical giant Monsanto—a deal that will have to pass antitrust muster with Trump’s Department of Justice (more on that here). Fox reports that Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and his Monsanto counterpart Hugh Grant met with the incoming president at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to promote the merger. In an email to the news organization, a Monsanto spokesperson confirmed that the two execs “had a productive meeting with President-Elect Trump and his team to share their views on the future of the agriculture industry and its need for innovation.”

Baumann and Grant have plenty to be concerned about regarding possible antitrust obstacles to their mega-deal. As I’ve reported before, a combined Bayer-Monsanto would own 29 percent of the global seed market, and 25 percent of the global pesticide market. And if the pending merger between agribiz goliaths Dow and DuPont also wins approval, three enormous companies—the above two combined firms, plus Syngenta (itself recently taken over by a Chinese chemical conglomerate)—would sell about 59 percent of the globe’s seeds and 64 percent of its pesticides. In this post, I tease out how such concentrated power can harm farmers and consumers alike.

And as The Wall Street Journal reports, opposition to these mergers has arisen even in rival agribusiness circles, including among the motley crew of execs and aligned GOP farm-state pols who served on Trump’s rural advisory committee during the campaign. Iowa corn, pork, and ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, a member of that committee and a leading candidate for the USDA post, told The Journal he “plans to raise his concerns about the mergers directly with Mr. Trump in the near future.” Rastetter is tightly aligned with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, whom Trump has picked to serve as ambassador to China.

As with everything else he does, Trump seems intent on plunging these momentous decisions—on both the future of the seed market and the leadership of the USDA—into a swirling sea of chaos and drama.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate