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.
Hellbound and Down 