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Biden administration plays long game for agriculture and trade [1]

['Special To The Capital-Star', 'More From Author', '- August']

Date: 2022-08-19 15:25:52+00:00

By Jared Strong

WOODWARD, Iowa — The United States could take international trade actions that might have an immediate impact on the operating costs for farmers and the markets available for their crops, but the Biden administration has opted for a longer-term strategy, one of the nation’s top emissaries said Thursday during a trip to a central Iowa farm.

“When we are building toward more of a resilient economy and global economy, there’s a transition that we need to go through,” said Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative. “We can’t just throw the switch and change the course of 20, 30, 40 years of trade policy. … If we know where we’re trying to go, we have to enable the changes that take time to be made.”

Her remarks were part of a visit to the Spellman Family Farm south of Woodward, in which Tai, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, met with representatives from more than a dozen agricultural groups.

The trio were pressed by some of the representatives to cut tariffs on imported fertilizers, require more-accurate labeling that identifies the true origin of processed beef and embrace free trade agreements to expand the markets available for Iowa agricultural exports.

“Exports literally are the difference between profit or not on all of our farms,” said Craig Floss, chief executive of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, noting that about a quarter of the state’s corn is used in products that are exported.

But Tai cautioned that trade agreements must be balanced to ensure equity among different sectors of the country’s economy.

“Free trade and globalization has definitely grown with time, and some sectors have won more than other sectors,” Tai said, and later added: “It’s not just free trade because we have to look at fair trade.”

But she touted some trade advances in the past year that have been a boon to meat and potato producers. India allowed imports of U.S. pork for the first time, Vietnam reduced its tariff on U.S. pork, Japan increased its imports of beef and Mexico ended a decades-long ban on U.S. fresh potatoes.

Will Mexico end imports of genetically modified corn?

There is uncertainty over whether Mexico will end imports of genetically modified U.S. corn in 2024 as decreed nearly two years ago by its populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Vilsack downplayed that potential cessation and called it a product of politics and pride in the country’s white corn.

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