Biden's Ag Trade MIA
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. The former head of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Don Schiefelbein says the Biden Administration is “missing in action” on trade.
He says he couldn’t get U.S. beef at a restaurant in the UK, where it hit its quota under old agreements …
SCHIEFELBEIN … “We’ve got to have an administration that just simply engages. There is no engagement right now in trade.”
A charge the White House just can’t break free of despite back-to-back record years of farm exports.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack …
VILSACK … “Tariff reductions and expansion of the safeguard in Japan has led to more beef exports. Tariff reductions on corn, wheat, and frozen pork in Vietnam.
Tariff reductions in the Philippines for corn, pork, and poultry. Tariff reductions to expand opportunities and blending requirements for expansion of ethanol in Panama, and expanded poultry access in the Middle East.”
But Schiefelbein says the White House refuses to do more traditional Free Trade Agreements …
SCHIEFELBEIN … “Right now, we have a trade group in this current administration that I call the ‘MIA’—missing in action. Here we have all these people who want to do business with America, and they’re being stonewalled with an administration, who, for whatever reason, we don’t know, but they just don’t seem to want to engage in trade.”
Vilsack says, “the problem today is there aren’t enough Americans who trust trade” … except in agriculture.
