Tuberville Raises Concerns Over Foreign Seafood and Lumber Imports Undercutting Alabama Producers

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins during a Senate hearing examining the challenges facing America's farmers, foresters, and seafood producers. During the hearing, Senator Tuberville asked about the USDA's efforts to combat the spread of the New World screwworm through the use of sterile flies. Sen. Tuberville also emphasized how foreign imports of lumber and shrimp are undercutting Alabama's foresters and fishermen.

During their conversation, Secretary Rollins pointed to the creation of the USDA's first-ever Office of Seafood and shared how her position on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) enables her to have greater oversight on foreign imports. Sen. Tuberville has been a staunch advocate for permanently adding the Secretary of Agriculture to CFIUS.

Read Sen. Tuberville's remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you, Secretary for being here. This-it's a disaster. We all know. We don't like to go back in time, but in the previous administration, we lost 150,000 farmers and 25,000 farms. A disaster. It hadn't stopped. We're still losing because when you have all those high input costs up to this point, the farmers, and producers in my state of Alabama-when you have a four or five-year-losing streak-in coaching, you get fired. Well, in farming, you go broke. And that's what's happening. We're having tough problems. Just one question about the screwworm. Have we opened any of the border in Mexico, either west coast or the east coast of the border?"

ROLLINS: "No. The ports have been closed for a year-"

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah."

ROLLINS: "-and that allowed us to keep it out. I think that if we'd opened any of those ports, we would have had it on our side six months, eight months, ten months ago."

TUBERVILLE: "Are you putting the fly traps-or whatever you call them-all along the border? Where are they?"

ROLLINS: "They are. They're all along the border. We have a polygon that gets adjusted every day. So, on Wednesday of last week, when the calf with the first confirmed case-a three-week-old calf in La Prier, Texas-was confirmed. We-within four hours-we're dropping eight million sterile flies right on top of that ranch, and they have had no other cases. And this just proves the efficacy of the technology. So yes, we're constantly moving based on where the cases are propping up, and this month again, we'll have more coming online out of Matapa, so we'll be able to expand that. Hopefully with the Novo fly, we'll be able to even exponentially expand it by the end of the year, and then we're moving up the timeline to get that big production facility ready to go hopefully before next summer."

TUBERVILLE: "Can our packers and producers make it without Mexican beef?"

ROLLINS: "Well, I think that the larger question is a good one, and that is that our packers are losing a lot of money right now because we don't have-it's the lowest cattle herd in history of our country. But what's important to realize is that's a worldwide phenomenon. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Listen, in America, there's no question that the previous four years to us, the ranchers were not number one on the policy list. There's grazing land taken away. A lot of USDA money was shifted to more climate-focused projects, etcetera. You had a lot of issues with a lot of the different pushback on that. And then, you combine that with the Make America Healthy Again movement. We have a higher demand for beef today than we've ever had before. The carcass weights are bigger now because of genetics, so we don't have less beef on the shelves. We have about the same amount of beef on the shelves. What's happened is more people are eating it and want it. And as the price has gone up, the demand continues to increase, too. So, we've just got to get more cattle here as soon as possible. And incentivize our ranchers to retain. It's hard to do that when the prices are really good for these cattle. And the average herd in America is 45 head. What that tells you is that almost every ag producer has a herd of cattle and that's keeping them afloat."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. Switch gears here a little bit. My foresters are getting killed. Our sawmills are closing down. We're getting beat up by Canada. I think we have a 25-percent-tariff on Canada. It needs to be about 60, 70 percent. They are flooding our country with lumber. And our sawmills are going out. We're losing paper mills. We have nothing to-we have no place for our wood residuals to go. I mean, it's becoming a disaster. Our crop farmers are having problems, our foresters are having problems. What's your thoughts on the problems we're having with our foresters?"

ROLLINS: "Yeah, I should have mentioned-I said cotton, rice, and we should put forest-timber-on there too. We are similar to cotton and rice. We've released cotton. Rice is coming, but timber is next. And I think there's a lot we can do on the international front with the trade team to continue to push this and prioritize it because you're right. And this is one of the fundamental original agriculture producers in this country is our foresters, our timber guys, and the timber mills. And there's a lot of opportunity there just as we've done in biofuels. Think there's a lot in biomass we can do, so we'll stay focused on that and let's work with your office."

TUBERVILLE: "Yep. China can come in and buy our lumber-our trees-and cut our trees, put them on ships, ship them back, mill them, make cabinets out of them-the same that we make here-and then ship them back and they undercut our prices. And we need to tariff the hell out of China. I don't understand that. I don't understand why we cannot protect our people in our country, and I know it's all about diplomacy. But at the end of the day, we have got to save the people that that make things in his country. That's why President Trump wanted. He wants, 'Hey, let's make things here.' Good. Let's tariff the hell out of the people that are shipping in stuff that that we can't undercut. One other thing before my time runs out. Gulf Coast shrimpers, they continue to face pressure from imported seafood that is often sold at an unfair price due to foreign subsidies and dumping prices. Can you address that?"

ROLLINS: "There is no doubt our Gulf Coasters, and well, really all of our coasts are seeing this. North Carolina has a big issue, too. This is-we opened the first ever Office of Seafood. I don't know Senator, if you were tracking that. I know some were at USDA before-our seafooders, our fishers, our farmers of the sea have never even had really a home in the federal government. But about six months ago, we offered, we opened our Office of Seafood with the sole purpose of making sure that we can better, more actively, and more vigorously advocate for our fishermen and the shrimpers are just whether it's that or labor, there's just all kinds of challenges there, but we're fully focused on it."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. Here's a problem I have. We raised on the Gulf Coast about four percent of the shrimp that we eat in our country. So, 96 percent of the shrimp that comes that we eat comes from other countries. If you buy it in a grocery store, basically if you're not on the coast, you're eating shrimp that comes from sewers from Vietnam, from Cambodia. I mean, it's atrocious."

ROLLINS: "Yeah."

TUBERVILLE: "And I think we need more oversight on that. You know, it looks great when it comes in these frozen packages in the grocery store, but we're putting it in our bodies. We're worried about MAHA and it's a catastrophe."

ROLLINS: "That's right."

TUBERVILLE: "One other thing real quick. You spoke about the National Farm Security Action Plan. How are you working with the Department of War with this for our National Security?"

ROLLINS: "I have been so pleased at not just Secretary Hegseth, but across-Secretary Bessent, all of the different cabinet colleagues of mine that have accepted agriculture with open arms and put ag at the very top of the list. I'm now part of the CFIUS Committee. I can't believe ag was never part of CFIUS before-the foreign investment relation committee out of the White House reviewing everything that's happening in America from foreign entities and adversaries. So, it's been extremely positive."

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman."

ROLLINS: "Thank you, Senator."

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.

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