Donald Trump isn’t looking to “buy American” when it comes to restocking eggs in America’s fridges.
The president’s plan to bring down egg prices involves outsourcing the country’s need to three or four other nations by purchasing 70 to 100 million eggs for the American market, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Wednesday.
In an interview with Fox News earlier in the day, Rollins first and foremost blamed the rising egg cost on Biden administration policies, rather than the spread of avian flu, which has practically devastated egg production across the nation.
“This shows the price of eggs over the last 40 years,” Rollins said, holding up a line graph. “As you can see, the price was pretty static for 40 to 50 years, actually, and then all of a sudden under Obama it went up a little bit, Trump went down, and then Biden it has skyrocketed.”
In January, the price of a dozen eggs rose by 13.8 percent and averaged $4.95 across the country, according to The New York Times. By late February, the average cost for a dozen eggs had soared to roughly $8.
Avian flu—which is largely spread by wild fowl—has added incredible strain on American chicken farmers, extinguishing some small businesses overnight as they contend with infection in their roosts. If just one hen tests positive for the H5N1 virus, it could precipitate the preventative deaths of the entire flock.
The disease, which so far has affected 166 million birds, temporarily shuttered New York City’s poultry markets earlier this month and skyrocketed the cost of a standard dozen eggs to more than $12 in Key Foods and C-Town, amid a nationwide egg shortage. In Connecticut, the price for a dozen eggs at Stop & Shop approached $20.
Rollins told Fox that the USDA will also offer “biosecurity” assistance to help American farmers secure barns to prevent further spread of the virus. But when it comes to solutions for getting eggs back into American households, Rollins pointed to deregulation and outsourcing the immediate need to other countries.
“This would not be a long-term fix but to immediately begin to bring those prices down,” Rollins told Fox.
Meanwhile, one of the largest egg producers in the nation is facing scrutiny for managing to raise revenues and profits amid the ongoing food crisis.
