USDA Trade Committee That Promotes Hemp Internationally To Be Closed Under Trump Executive Order
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The Trump administration is moving to terminate trade advisory committees under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including one that had been expanded to include hemp industry representatives to promote the crop internationally.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Monday, USDA advised that it will be going forward with the termination of the committees in compliance with an executive order President Donald Trump signed in February that’s meant to reduce the size of the federal government across multiple agencies. The plan has been paused, however, as USDA is now asking the White House to advise on how to most efficiently facilitate the terminations.
This means the Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts, and Hemp—among six other committees focused on different crops—will be shuttered.
“It’s certainly a concern,” Jonathan Miller, general counsel at the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told Marijuana Moment on Wednesday. “You know, the irony has been, for the past decade, we’ve wanted to be treated like every other commodity—and we got that when it comes to this commission. Now, with this broad focus we’re potentially being penalized.”
However, he said that in light of certain policy reversal amid the Trump administration’s efforts to cut spending, he remains “hopeful” that after a review, there will be “a real focus going forward on what’s meaningful and what’s not. And we think this is a meaningful program.”
The ATAC didn’t always have hemp in its title, nor representatives of the industry. But following the federal legalization of low-THC forms of the cannabis crop under the 2018 Farm Bill that Trump signed into law during his first term, USDA got to work incorporating hemp into its various policies and programs, which included its elevation within the ATAC in order to encourage international trade deals.
USDA and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have been gradually building up hemp industry representation within the ATAC. The first members were appointed in 2020, and the most recent joined this January, shortly before Trump took office for the second time. The name of the ATAC was changed to explicitly include hemp in 2023.
But now, the committee—as well as all of the others established under USDA—will be closing down in response to the president’s executive order that directly called for their termination as part of its efforts to reduce “the size of the Federal Government in order to minimize waste, fraud, abuse, and inflation and to promote American freedom and innovation,” the agency’s notice says.
The timeline for the termination is unclear, but Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a memo last month that the plans, initially announced in February, were being paused so the agency can consult with the White House Liaison Office (WHL) and create “a strategy to ensure an efficient and effective rollout strategy for the termination of all Federal Advisory Committees.”
“WHL shall provide a plan for potential consolidations, terminations, and reorganizations of all Federal Advisory Committees in the United States Department of Agriculture” by June 20, the latest memo says.
Meanwhile, a report released by USDA last month found that, even as more states and some congressional lawmakers pursued bans on consumable hemp products, the industry saw significant growth in 2024.
The National Hemp Report, which USDA conducts annually to assess the economic health of the market, showed that hemp farmers cultivated 45,294 acres of the crop last year, up 64 percent from 2023. And the industry’s value jumped about 40 percent, increasing to $445 million.
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As the fate of the consumable hemp market remains murky amid legislative pushback, a congressional committee held a hearing on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month—with a hemp industry expert explaining how the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products.
Lawmakers have consistently raised concerns about FDA’s refusal to establish rules allowing for the marketing of federally legal hemp as a food item or dietary supplement.
One potential legislative solution that U.S. Hemp Roundtable’s Miller noted to the committee is a bipartisan bill Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) filed last year that would create a federal regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoids.
The legislation would empower states to set their own rules for products such as CBD while also empowering FDA to ensure that certain safety standards are met in the marketplace.
In the absence of FDA rules, states from California to Florida have pushed for sweeping changes to their own laws around consumable hemp products. While much of the focus has been on intoxicating products, federally legal CBD businesses have also found themselves increasingly in the crosshairs.
Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepare to once again take up large-scale agriculture legislation this session, congressional researchers in January provided an overview of the policy landscape around hemp—emphasizing the divides around various cannabis-related proposals among legislators, stakeholders and advocates.
Senate Democrats released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill last year that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. But certain stakeholders had expressed concern that part of the intent of the legislation was to “eliminate a whole range of products” that are now sold in the market.
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