Don’t Make A Farmer Angry
Don't get them mad!
OK, the gloves are off and the fighters are coming out of their corners. It’s organized labor versus the farm lobby at the Capitol Hill arena. It’s mostly labor unions that have blocked action on the three free trade agreements that the United States has negotiated with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. And now the farmers are coming after the unions.
A letter was sent March 1 from 57 agricultural trade groups to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and the Senate that diplomatically advised the Congress to get its collective butt in gear. The signatory organizations represent farmers, ranchers, food processors and exporters, and, according to their letter, the products they sell in foreign markets provide 8,000 jobs for every billion dollars of exports. If the Congress and the Administration are serious about doubling U.S. exports, then ratifying and implementing the FTAs with Panama, Colombia and South Korea is a perfect way to start doing it. We sell about $7 billion to the three markets annually, or 56,000 farm-related jobs that could be grown if we enact the FTAs or diminished if we fail to act.
Passage of these agreements will also correct an imbalance in the conditions of trade. The letter notes that American farm exports face significant customs duties in all three countries, but that U.S. tariffs on incoming farm products are far lower. Ninety percent of Colombia’s agricultural exports to the United States enter duty-free. The same is true for 95% of Panama’s farm exports to the United States. Korea’s agricultural tariffs are four times higher than America applies to Korean ag products. Congressmen talk a big game about “leveling the playing field”, but here we have a chance to do that and the politicians aren’t moving.
Other countries are moving into these markets while the United States dithers. The letter says that, at the end of 2008, the world had 230 free trade agreements, but that America was only in 17 of them. Perhaps another 400 FTAs are in the pipeline worldwide, but we only have the three that Congress refuses to act on. Since we negotiated the FTA with South Korea, the Koreans have concluded or are negotiating further agreements with 52 other countries! Why are we waiting to gain duty-free access to the world’s fifth largest market? Do our political leaders think it is “fair trade” if we let 52 competitors beat us to the market?
So, it is the farmers versus the unions. Gonna be a good fight.
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:13 am
We might have some more fights brewing, this time between unions. Did you see the reports that China is now GM’s #1 market? Does this mean United Auto Workers will oppose action to punish China for currency manipulation? If we apply punitive tariffs to U.S. imports from China, China could retaliate against all those GM sales, putting UAW jobs on the line. What’s a union gonna do?