I'd known Justice Thomas, being from Georgia. I just raised my right hand, put my left
hand on the Bible, with Mary smiling at me, and taking the oath of office to be
the Secretary of Agriculture. Quite an honor. Trump: There could be no better person to
be our Secretary of Agriculture. A man known, trusted and respected by your
industry. Thank you very much, Secretary Perdue.
Y'all need to know I was a farmer first. (applause) And we're gonna get comfortable in working
clothes, okay? When you have a strategic goal, as we do at USDA, to be the most
efficient, the most effective, the most customer focused agency in this country
with the best reputation, can we do that?(applause) I believe we can.
The only way we become that way is to know what those customers are saying,
what they're thinking and what they're aspiring to. I've traveled across this country
to hear from people. What I've asked them is what is USDA doing right. what is it
doing wrong, how can we improve rural prosperity, rural quality of life or how can
we just get out of your way? The American economy has been burdened with
unproductive regulations, and we're liberating the American economy - our
American farmers and ranchers and producers - to do what they best do. If farms
aren't doing well in our rural communities, those rural communities
don't do well. Sadly we do not see rural America recovering from the recession to
the same degree that we see urban environments, and that bothers me. We're
here by virtue of an executive order that our president signed. Trump: This is
promoting agriculture and rural prosperity in America. (applause) Working with my
counterparts from other cabinet departments, we came up with a report on
how we think we can help rural America succeed and thrive.
We'd love to inform Congress in the next Farm Bill. Certainly the young adults that
are trying to determine what their mark in life will be, FFA and 4-H are two
great youth organizations that give back. And that's what we're encouraging young
people, to look at careers in agriculture. And we want to help those who choose to
return home or start a new career on a farm or in a rural community.
When disasters strike, like hurricanes, food is important. That's where USDA
comes in. We've served many many meals to people who were unable to get food
elsewhere. I had a friend who had a 12 year old granddaughter, and she said: can Mister Sonny
make school lunches great again? So we relaxed restrictions and were able to
make meals that would be consumed again.
Trade is vitally important. We just need to make sure that it's not only free
trade, but fair trade for the United States. In past years we've been dipping into
the Forest Service budget for forest management in order to fight wildfires.
This provided us the emergency funding for forest fire, without having to borrow
from the funds for thinning the timber, cleaning those forests out, where they
become healthy.
Our informal motto here at USDA is to do right and feed everyone. Do right and
feed everyone. We think that's a great motto for USDA. Do right means treating
each other with respect. And feeding everyone means making sure that every
American has enough to eat. Do right and feed everyone. Thank you all, have a great week. (applause)