USDA Adds New Trade Mission Trips

Trade dominates conversation at Commodity Classic in New Orleans this month. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service added four new mission trips to its 2022 schedule.

“We indicated a desire to expand on the number of agricultural missions, trade missions we are going to conduct in 2022, with additional opportunities in the UK, London in June, the Philippines in July – that’s our ninth-largest market, by the way – Kenya in October, late October into November, and to Spain in November and early December. And this is designed to emphasize the important role that we see in expanding opportunity beyond our reliance on one or two key markets.”

The agency seeks new markets for American commodities.

“We want to make sure that we're active in a number of other emerging markets: North Africa and the Middle East are two, in particular, where I think we have some real opportunity, and Southeast Asia, of course, where we're already engaged, and we need to expand on our efforts there.”

The United States trades with more than 395 countries… with China, Mexico, and Canada ranking top three. And when it comes to China, the U.S. imports more than four times the amount of goods that it exports… taking up 15 percent of U.S. international trade, with Canada and Mexico tied at just a little more than 14 percent.