At the White House earlier this month, President Donald Trump joined a roundtable of America’s farmers to announce $12 billion in bailouts. But when Meryl Kennedy, the 37-year-old CEO of her family’s Louisiana rice mill, spoke up to tell him that “the tariffs are working but we need to double down,” he was surprised: “You want more?” Trump asked.

Kennedy, seated next to the president, replied that other rice-producing countries were “cheating” and that India, Thailand and China have been “dumping” cheap rice into America and hurting the domestic industry. “Our farmers can feed this nation and many nations abroad,” Kennedy said in a slow Louisiana drawl. “but we need fair trade, not free trade.”

Trump turned to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and asked if India, which has been facing 50% tariffs on all exports since August and has been negotiating with the administration, has an exemption for rice. When he found out it does not, he looked outside his cabinet and asked Kennedy which nations should receive increased tariffs to protect America’s rice farmers: “Give me the countries if you could,” Trump said. “Go ahead. India. Who else? Mark it down, Scott.”

Trump then promised Kennedy that he would “take care” of the problem—a major win for Kennedy, whose $100 million (est. annual revenue) family-owned rice mill works with 60 farmers across Louisiana and Arkansas. Kennedy tells Forbes that she was invited to the White House after sending a letter to the president at the behest of her farmers about rice prices crashing amid historically high expenses.

“My farmers started calling about a month ago, almost in tears, asking ‘What are we going to do?’” Kennedy says. “We have never seen prices this low, relative to the cost of production, in my career.”

Her family business stands to gain from Trump’s esteem—their Mer Rouge, Louisiana based Kennedy........

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