John Deere & Company CFO and Senior Vice President Josh Jepsen discusses the company’s Investor Day and highlights the future of agriculture with autonomous tractors and See & Spray technology on The Claman Countdown.
President Donald Trump said Monday that his government plans to tackle the cost of agricultural equipment by easing the regulatory burden on equipment manufacturers.
Trump made the comments during a roundtable discussion on issues affecting the U.S. agricultural sector, including the administration’s plan to provide a roughly $12 billion bailout package to farmers affected by trade disruptions caused by tariffs.
“The other thing I want to add… and I think it’s very important, we’re also going to explore the tractor companiesJohn Deere and all the companies that make the equipment, we’re going to lift a lot of the environmental restrictions they have on machines.”
“It’s ridiculous. I know because I buy a lot of those machines for different things. We have a lot of big clubs with hundreds, thousands of hectares, and I buy a lot of things,” the president added.
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A John Deere tractor pulling a trailer while a combine harvestes soybeans. (Richard Hamilton Smith/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Trump said the higher equipment costs stem from environmental regulations necessitating the inclusion of more technology aimed at things like reducing emissions or saving energy.
“You buy it and it has so much equipment on it for the environment that it doesn’t do anything except make the equipment much more expensive and much more complicated to operate, and it’s not as good as it used to be,” Trump said.
“We’re going to take a lot of that crap off the equipment… and we’re going to do it, and we’re going to say you’re going to lower prices,” the president said. “Farm equipment has become too expensive, and a big part of the reason is that they install it ecological excesses on the equipment that does nothing but complicate it, make it impractical.”
BEEF PRICES ARE CLOSE TO RECORD HIGH – BUT AMERICANS ARE NOT CUTTING BACK
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE | DEERE & CO. | 466.35 | -8.76 |
-1.84% |
The President said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will work with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to relax environmental regulations for agricultural machinery manufacturers.
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President Donald Trump said environmental regulations have made farm machinery unnecessarily complex. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
“John Deere shares the administration’s focus on lowering costs for our nation’s agricultural producers and consumers. We are doing everything we can to help American farmers reduce input costs,” the company said.
Trump said he plans to reduce environmental regulations on farm equipment makers. (Bill Barksdale/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“The equipment and technologies that Deere makes here in the U.S. give American farmers new tools and technologies that can substantially reduce their input costs and labor costs while increasing yields, expanding their margins,” the report said.
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John Deere added that it is prepared to continue working with the Trump administration and Congress to “advance policies that support the rural economy through challenging cycles.”
