Joe Biden picks Tom Vilsack to reprise role as agriculture secretary

Tom Vilsack has been a proponent of international trade who criticized President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China and has shown a willingness to build consensus with agricultural interests.

President-elect Joe Biden turned to former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to reprise his Obama administration role as US agriculture secretary, according to two people familiar with the decision, tapping a Farm Belt politician with deep ties to rural America.

US President-elect Joe Biden announces nominees and appointees to serve on his health and coronavirus response teams during a news conference at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, US on December 8, 2020. (Reuters File Photo)

Vilsack has been a proponent of international trade who criticized President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China and has shown a willingness to build consensus with agricultural interests. He is well-known both to Biden and farm groups, having spent eight years as agriculture secretary, Barack Obama’s longest-serving cabinet member.

Biden chose Vilsack as he tries to build support among constituencies that favored Trump, especially in rural America.

Biden settled on Vilsack after also considering Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge, whose case had been pressed by a key ally, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina.

Fudge will be nominated instead to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a person familiar with the transition said.