Tariffs and Trade Worries
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. The final Ag trade deficit for fiscal year 2024 was even more of a record than USDA expected, and 2025 could be worse.
USDA Economist Bart Kenner says lower export values and bigger imports created the whopping deficit that he forecast last month to be $27.5 billion dollars, but turned out to be …
KENNER … “A trade balance of negative 31.8 billion dollars.”
And Kenner says fiscal year 2025 could hit $42.5 billion.
American Farm Bureau head Zippy Duvall is worried about the President-elect’s vow to impose big import tariffs …
DUVALL … “Of course, we’re concerned about tariffs. Tariffs that could drive the cost of imported supplies like fertilizer. And it also, tariffs could limit the exports of goods that farmers and ranchers can export.”
As countries like China again retaliate.
Ethan Lane with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association …
LANE … “More than $400 in value on every fed carcass is attributable to those exports to markets, so jeopardizing that is a real concern to American agriculture.”
Duvall is worried about free trade deals …
DUVALL … “We need to work on those trade agreements. We’ve seen the rest of the world outpace us in trade agreements, and we need to go back to the drawing board and have new trade agreements and expand on the ones that we have.”
President Biden didn’t do new free trade deals amid opposition from his union supporters.
