3 Top Priorities for Ag Trade

Haylie Shipp

Trade is always a hot topic for agriculture and, right now, the American Farm Bureau Federation says that there are three issues to watch. Dave Salmonsen is their Senior Director of Government Affairs. He says that number one, President Biden recently signed legislation that changes the trade relationship between the U.S. and Russia…

“The first legislation basically stops us from importing energy from Russia. The second bit of legislation revokes what's called ‘permanent normal trade relations’ with Russia. What that means is that we had granted Russia like we grant 160 plus other countries around the world the exact same tariff treatment. So, now the U.S. is free to impose different tariffs going forward on Russia, falling back to our tariff schedule we had with them before they had this status.”

Number two, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is holding trade dialogues with the United Kingdom. And, number three, the U.S. Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports could be addressed soon.

“We’ve heard from Treasury Secretary Yellen, officials in the National Security Council and the White House, saying it's time to revisit those tariffs to help trade. We in agriculture have been against those tariffs because of the retaliations, and even though they waved a lot of that because of the China-U.S. Phase One agreement, the purchase commitment of that agreement is over and the potential to reimpose tariffs lingers out there.”

Dave Salmonsen, American Farm Bureau.