AGRICULTURAL TRADE POLICY:
Early Challenges and Big Picture Questions Loom for a New President BY PATRICK WADE | Policy Director, Texas Grain Sorghum Producers
A
be domestic policy, saying, “I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments at home and in our workers…” However, there are a few immediate trade policy issues that the 46th President of the United States will not be able to ignore, and many other big picture agricultural trade policy concerns that industries and interest groups must vigilantly press the administration to address.
In 2016, President-elect Trump was on the record of promising to withdraw from the soon-to-be-ratified Trans-Pacific Partnership and frequently hinted at his eventual renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. President-elect Biden has been considerably more cryptic. In the throes of a pandemic and economic recession, he broadly asserted that his first priorities would
First and foremost, regardless of Biden’s interest in negotiating new free trade agreements, he will almost certainly need to shepherd ongoing negotiations with the United Kingdom across the finish line. The U.K., our seventh largest trading partner and a major diplomatic ally, has finally come to an agreement on its terms for leaving the European Union, and now must sign off on its own free trade agreements with trading partners around the world. Negotia-
lthough trade policy was one of the most divisive issues during the four years of the Trump presidency, it played a surprisingly limited role in the buildup to the general election. With Joe Biden set to assume the office of the President in January 2021, we have little to go on in terms of charting his administration’s possible course of actions to expand and improve the free flow of American goods around the world.
16
Ag Mag THEAGMAG.ORG
