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FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026   |   SPECIAL REPORT & ANALYSIS

POLICY ANALYSIS  |  AG TRADE DEFICIT

Rollins’ ‘First-Ever’ Ag Trade Deficit Claim Doesn’t Square with USDA’s Own Data

Department records date the red ink to FY 2019 — and the 1950s posted deficits, too
 

Analysis  ·  July 24, 2026

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins continues to insist that in 2023, for the first time in history, the United States imported more food than it exported. It is a striking talking point. It is also at odds with the trade ledger kept by her own department.

USDA compiles its benchmark agricultural trade data on a fiscal year (FY) basis, running October through September. By that measure, the milestone Rollins assigns to 2023 actually arrived four years earlier — during the first Trump administration. In FY 2019, U.S. agricultural imports exceeded exports by $1.34 billion, the first deficit in decades. The gap widened to $3.7 billion in FY 2020 before the sector swung back to surpluses of $8.5 billion in FY 2021 and $1.9 billion in FY 2022. The deficit then returned in FY 2023 at $17.3 billion — larger than before, but hardly the first.

Rollins has never specified whether she is citing calendar year or fiscal year figures, and the distinction matters. But even a calendar year reading offers her little cover: USDA’s Economic Research Service, in its own “Charting the Essentials” data product, states that the U.S. agricultural trade balance “was positive for nearly 60 years until 2019, when the balance began shifting to a deficit.” Either way, the department’s data place the turn at 2019, not 2023.

The longer history undercuts the “first time in history” framing further. USDA trade records reaching back to 1935 show the sector ran deficits in the 1950s, with the largest that decade at $1.7 billion. A caveat is in order: the older data were compiled on a July–June fiscal year, while the modern series uses the October–September year, which makes precise comparison across eras difficult. But the direction of the ledger is not in doubt — agricultural imports have topped exports before, and well before 2023.

This is not the first time the secretary’s trade arithmetic has drawn scrutiny. In April 2025, PolitiFact rated as “Mostly False” her claim that the ag trade deficit had grown “from zero when President Trump left” office to $49 billion, noting that FY 2020 in fact closed with a $3.7 billion deficit and that Rollins had leaned on a fiscal year to fault the Biden administration while invoking a calendar year to credit Trump.

None of this is to minimize the underlying trend, which is real and historically large. The deficit ballooned to $31.9 billion in FY 2024 and hit a record $43.7 billion in FY 2025, with exports of $175.6 billion against imports of $219.4 billion. USDA’s February 2026 Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade projects the gap will narrow to $29 billion in FY 2026 — an $8 billion improvement from the December forecast — though largely because imports are expected to fall faster than exports, not because of any export resurgence.

Bottom line

That is a story the administration could tell straight from its own tables. The record deficit does not need embellishing — and the timeline matters, because the swing to red ink began not under the previous administration, but during the first Trump term that Rollins’ framing conveniently skips.

U.S. Agricultural Trade Balance by Fiscal Year

Source: USDA Economic Research Service, Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade. Fiscal years end Sept. 30. FY 2026 is the February 2026 forecast.