Executive Order 13790 directed the Department of Agriculture to undertake a comprehensive regulatory review aimed at identifying and modifying rules that impose costs on agricultural operations and rural communities. The order tasked the USDA with cataloging regulations deemed burdensome to farmers and rural businesses, with the explicit goal of reducing regulatory burden across farm operations, environmental compliance requirements, and rural development programs. This represented one of the administration's earliest efforts to systematically challenge the regulatory framework governing American agriculture.

The most direct impact fell on agricultural producers, farm operators, and rural businesses subject to USDA oversight. Farmers facing environmental compliance mandates, water quality protections, and conservation requirements potentially saw those obligations reconsidered through the regulatory review process. Rural development programs that had incorporated environmental safeguards or operational standards likewise faced scrutiny. Small rural communities dependent on federally supported development initiatives also stood to experience changes in program administration and requirements.

The order situated itself within a broader pattern of deregulatory action that would intensify substantially in later years. While this 2017 action focused on identifying problematic regulations, subsequent administrations expanded trade protectionism through tariff implementations—including the continuation of national emergency declarations on trade deficits and suspension of duty-free treatment for imports. These escalating trade measures have increasingly affected American farmers, who depend heavily on export markets and face retaliatory tariffs and higher input costs from agricultural equipment and services reliant on imported materials.

The specific legal challenges or congressional responses to Executive Order 13790 itself remain limited in available record, though environmental advocacy groups contested various regulatory modifications that resulted from the order's directives. The tension between deregulation efforts and agricultural sustainability persists as farmers navigate competing pressures: reduced regulatory costs versus exposure to trade disruption and tariff-driven economic instability affecting farm profitability and rural economies.