Vilsack on Trade Deals
Vilsack on Trade Deals. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Last Thursday Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack spent some time with me on the phone talking about not only the resolution to the Mexican trucking and tariff issue but to discuss the free trade agreements currently making their way around Capital Hill.
VILSACK: This is also a terrific opportunity for American agriculture. The Senate Finance Committee today approved all three free trade agreements without amendments which moves them to the floor of the Senate which we hope will act on these free trade agreements quickly and the House will follow suit and hopefully sometime this summer we have these free trade agreements approved and that we have the trade adjustment assistance, help and assistance for those who are adversely affected by trade agreements.
Vilsack says they hope this will successfully open new markets for ag producers.
VILSACK: The combination of this is help for those who are in need and opening up new markets for producers and more job opportunities that result whenever we expand export opportunities in agriculture. We see this as a$2.3 billion dollar net increase in U.S. agricultural exports. That will add on an annual basis to the already record ag exports that we see this year. We’re looking at a significant surplus of roughly $42 billion dollars and we know for every billion dollars in ag sales there are 8400 jobs that are attached to those sales.
He says they expect to see around $135 billion dollars total in ag sales and a trade surplus that he says you don’t often see in our economy. It is obviously not a done deal but he says there is some optimism that this will get done.
VILSACK: Well that’s our hope. We obviously need a cooperative Congress to do that. We are pleased with the fact that members of the finance committee all came to work today interested in getting the work done. Votes were taken, the trade agreements were passed through the committee. That is an important process and obviously Senator Baucus’ leadership was important in all of this and so we’ve got that first step done. We obviously need to continue building a momentum, getting it though the Senate, get it though the House, get it to the President then we need to begin implementing and marketing our products around Columbia, Korea and Panama.
And as comedian Larry the Cable Guy always says, let’s just “Get ‘er done!”
VILSACK: Absolutely. That’s the motto we have here at USDA and today is a day where we are getting things done from biofuel announcements - the first commercial size cellulosic ethanol production facility to the Mexican truck agreement dispute being resolved and opening up those markets to free trade agreements.
That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
