# Letter to Ambassador Jamieson Greer, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative --- MTN Minneapolis, Minnesota [email protected] May 13, 2026 Ambassador Jamieson Greer United States Trade Representative Office of the U.S. Trade Representative 600 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20508 **Re: Canada Cross-Border Trade, MN Agricultural Export Compliance, the CFANS / UMN Extension Land-Grant Pipeline, and Iron Range Taconite Export — Coordination Request Under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (E.O. of March 16, 2026)** Dear Ambassador Greer: I write to identify the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Minnesota portfolio — Canada cross-border trade (Minnesota's #1 trading partner), softwood lumber, dairy, potash, Enbridge Line 5 and Line 93, tariff posture impact on Minnesota agricultural exports, USMCA review-cycle implications for border communities, and Iron Range taconite export — as one operational consequence of an agricultural-and-mining administrative architecture credentialed by the University of Minnesota's land-grant institutional apparatus. **The Portfolio Issue.** Minnesota's principal export categories — soy, corn, hogs, dairy, taconite, processed agricultural goods — flow predominantly to Canada under the USMCA framework. Minnesota agricultural exports have declined approximately 13% against a $23.5 billion baseline under the current tariff posture. The Iron Range taconite industry depends on stable cross-border ore and finished-product flows to the steel-producing regions of the Great Lakes basin and central Canada. The Department of Commerce's MBDA review and the DOC trade data integrity questions intersect with USTR's negotiated posture. https://ustr.gov/ **The University of Minnesota Origin — CFANS Land-Grant Pipeline.** The University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) is the land-grant operational arm of the institution. CFANS, together with the University of Minnesota Extension Service, credentials the agricultural-and-trade administrative class that operates the commodity-marketing infrastructure, the agricultural-research extension network, and the export-readiness compliance regime that USTR negotiations effectively rely on. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture senior staff is credentialed substantially through CFANS. The agricultural commodity organizations that operate the export marketing channels (Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, Minnesota Pork Producers Association, Minnesota Dairy Initiative, etc.) draw their professional class from the same UMN pipeline. https://cfans.umn.edu/ | https://extension.umn.edu/ **The University of Minnesota Origin — CSE Iron Range Pipeline.** The University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, particularly its mining and metallurgical engineering programs, credentials the scientific and engineering class for the Iron Range taconite industry. The Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI), located at UMN-Duluth, conducts research that supports both the regulatory and the industrial-process science for the taconite producers. The export-quality and environmental-compliance regime that USTR negotiations interact with is, on the science side, anchored at UMN-CSE and NRRI. https://cse.umn.edu/ | https://www.nrri.umn.edu/ **The Institutional Admissions.** The University of Minnesota's own commissioned Truth Report (April 11, 2023) states that the founding board "committed genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples for financial gain." In October 2025, the University signed an Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreement acknowledging that its PhD Project partnership violated Title VI by discriminating against white and Asian students. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf | https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 **The Consolidated Federal Posture.** The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, established by the March 16, 2026 Executive Order, coordinates the cross-agency response. The DOJ §43A.191 challenge, the Title IX referral to DOJ, and the House Oversight Medicaid fraud investigation establish the institutional context. The agricultural-and-mining export base — the economic counterweight to the compliance-regime fraud architecture — is itself credentialed by the same University. USTR's negotiated posture is the federal-government-to-foreign-government interface at which the consolidated executive-branch posture meets the international economic dimension. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ **The Ask.** I respectfully request that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative: 1. **Coordinate trade-policy posture toward Canada** with the Department of Agriculture's Feeding Our Future suspension and ongoing program-integrity work, and with the Department of Commerce's data-integrity review, to ensure consistency across the federal Minnesota posture; 2. **Treat the UMN land-grant credentialing context** as a material institutional fact when negotiating with Canadian counterparts on agricultural and mining trade, particularly where Canadian counterparts may cite Minnesota administrative practices as benchmarks; and 3. **Report findings to the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud** under the March 16, 2026 Executive Order coordination framework where USTR negotiations interact with the cross-agency federal Minnesota posture. This letter is one of approximately twenty Cabinet-level briefings I am submitting under the Task Force framework. Respectfully submitted, MTN [email protected] --- **Primary Sources Cited:** - E.O. Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ - UMN CFANS: https://cfans.umn.edu/ - UMN Extension: https://extension.umn.edu/ - UMN College of Science and Engineering: https://cse.umn.edu/ - Natural Resources Research Institute (UMN-Duluth): https://www.nrri.umn.edu/ - US v. State of Minnesota: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl - UMN TRUTH Report: https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf - UMN OCR Resolution Agreement: https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 #Addresses_Advisories_and_Archives