USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack pushed back against GOP doubts about the Biden Ag trade agenda at a recent House Ag Appropriations hearing. Republicans continue to charge that the Biden trade agenda lacks market-opening ag tariff cuts.
And while that’s true of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, Secretary Vilsack disputes the claim on several bilateral fronts.
“Tariff reductions and expansion of the safeguard in Japan has led to more beef exports, tariff reductions on corn, wheat, and frozen pork in Vietnam, tariff reductions in the Philippines for corn, pork, and poultry, tariff reductions to expand opportunities and blending requirements for expansion of ethanol in Panama, expanded poultry access in the Middle East.”
Vilsack says all of that contributed to back-to-back record Ag exports the last two years, with sales value up in all top ten U.S. markets. But when asked the importance of the president asking for Trade Promotion Authority to speed approval of any legally binding free trade deal, Vilsack argued free trade agreements just aren’t widely popular.
“The reality is the problem in America today is that there are not enough Americans who trust trade. It may very well be that in the agricultural space, people understand the importance of trade because we’ve enjoyed a surplus for many, many years. But the reality is that in many other industries, that’s not the perception of trade. So, I think we have to rebuild the trust in trade, and the way we do that is, in part, by educating people about the importance of it and the jobs that are created from it, and also making sure that, when we do have a trade agreement, we enforce it.”
Vilsack says the administration is trying to do that now with Mexico on GMO corn and Canada on dairy under USMCA.
