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By Kenneth Dierschke
President, Texas Farm Bureau
Free trade is a worthwhile goal, and one that most often seems unattainable. There is no question in my mind that a
world free of trade barriers, tariffs and the like is one where American farmers and ranchers could do very well. We are
not afraid to compete, but the trade world of today is not free, and it's not fair for American producers.
In a world that seems determined to keep certain protectionist measures in place, we have adjusted our goal to that of achieving a measure of fairness in the marketplace.
The primary means of addressing trade inequities has become bilateral or multilateral agreements with one or more nations. The North American Free Trade Agreement was one of these, along with about a dozen other such agreements in recent years.
Farm Bureau supports most of them, and while they are no substitute for global competition, they do provide an opportunity to negotiate more favorable trade arrangements between the agreements' participants.
How well do these agreements work? Since NAFTA was signed in 1993, it has accounted for 70 percent of all the growth in U.S. agricultural exports. Our NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico, bought a record $15.9 billion from us in 2002, a two-fold increase since 1993.
The World Trade Organization's current negotiations have become bogged down in futility, with many nations frustrated that they can't seem to steamroll U.S. negotiators as they have in the past. They are complaining of having to make too many concessions. The problem is, they've started with more advantages, and the U.S. cannot afford to sanction an agreement that locks those changes into the WTO.
Worldwide, the average tariff charged on U.S. goods entering foreign markets is 62 percent. The tariff charged on goods entering the U.S. is only about 14 percent.
With these numbers in mind, the recent preliminary decision by the WTO that the U.S. federal cotton program violates international trading rules is hard to understand. Brazil gets special treatment as a developing nation, yet is on the verge of becoming an agricultural superpower. They have actually increased cotton production, so it's hard to imagine how the U.S. farm program has affected them at all.
We have several options in responding to the final WTO ruling, when and if it goes against us. We should not consider dismantling our federal farm program that is working so well. Nor should we cave in, as we have in the past, to unreasonable demands from competitors that refuse to lower their tariffs or remove trade barriers.
We can negotiate free trade agreements and continue to press for fairness. Agricultural trade generates 800,000 American jobs, more than 60 percent of which are in urban areas. Everyone has a stake in getting it right this time.
