Presidential Candidates Anti-Trade Stances Troubling

A top American Farm Bureau official says the anti-trade deal rhetoric by the leading presidential candidates could be an issue for agriculture. American Farm Bureau executive director Dale Moore calls the anti-trade stances by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, "troubling, to be sure."

Moore: "For agriculture, these trade agreements are key part of what helps us not only maintain but take advantage of opportunities to expand markets around the world. Necessarily when you are talking about trade, free trade is one of those things that sets the buttons off in the wrong direction."

However, for agriculture, he says, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership are the right direction.

Moore: "There is somehow a notion in the United States — again I'm talking from an agricultural perspective — that we are giving up a lot in order to get these agreements. The way we view them at Farm Bureau is these agreements are helping level that playing field because for a lot of countries their access to U.S. markets is not that limited."

    

Moore says he believes the anti-free trade campaign rhetoric could change after one of the candidates is elected president. He adds that these anti-trade campaign arguments are intended to appeal to unions and other groups, but it is also hurting Farm Bureau's efforts to move the TPP through Congress. The longer it takes to ratify the deal that Farm Bureau says could bring $5 billion of new net farm exports, the more he says those benefits will be diminished.