Farm and Food File

from THE LAND ~ June 26, 2020 ~ Southern Edition

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No one ever loves the umpire

While the coronavirus Union in the 1970s to the pandemic was hammering vast, reawakening giant, global trade earlier this China, in the 2000s. year, the various U.S. bureaucracies devoted to trade barely skipped a beat before returning to their usual grind. But for all its strengths, the liberal order is still a delicate balancing act. If you want its benefits (open markets, free trade and

For example, the United FARM & FOOD FILE peace) you must constantly States and the United Kingdom just began By Alan Guebert reinvest to maintain its foundations: rules, trust talks on a bilateral trade pact prior to the U.K.’s Oct. 31 “Brexit” from the OPINION in its institutions, and strong, unwavering American leadership. European Union. Also, on July 1, NAFTA 2.0, the new-but-not-new North American Free Trade Agreement, will go into effect as scheduled. Alas, the Trump Administration has turned America’s traditional leadership role in international trade on its head. Within hours of taking office in 2017 the White House pulled the

What has changed drastically, howUnited States out of the nearly-comever, is trade itself. In short, it’s a pleted Trans-Pacific Pact — a beaten-up mess — even more sickly 12-nation trade deal that involves than the economies of key traders like about 40 percent of global trade. A the United States, China and the year later, the United States began a European Union. largely phony tariff war with Canada, “In the current alternate universe we’re living in,” Bloomberg News noted June 15, “global trade is collapsing China, the European Union, and other key food importers which remains unresolved today. and the WTO [World Trade But the biggest victim in the White Organization] and the liberal order House’s ongoing undermining of interitself are in a true existential crisis.” national ag trade is the World Trade “Liberal order” is a little-used phrase in U.S. ag circles even though almost every American farmer and rancher — due to their increasing dependence on government and global Organization. The WTO is like baseball’s home plate umpire. Few players or fans for either side love the ump, but there wouldn’t be a game without someone ensuring fairness. markets — would be sunk without it. Long before the pandemic began to In fact, it isn’t a political term; it’s perfectly descriptive: The liberal order is a rules-based, international system organized by the United States and its democratic allies on key principles like open markets, democracy, and multilateral institutions such as the WTO and World Bank. Its broader goal is peace and its key tool is commerce. erode global markets, the Trump White House began to erode the WTO’s role in market rule enforcement. Its most cutting action occurred last year when it blocked the nomination of new judges to the WTO’s “dispute resolution forum, the Appellate Body.” That effectively meant the WTO “was no longer able to operate.” American farmers and ranchers have long used a colorful phrase to explain it more accurately: Hungry people don’t shoot their grocers. They’re right. Since the liberal order’s rise, the United States has built three generations of peaceful farm policy on its core foundations: open markets, Other key global traders, sensing an opportunity to seize part of America’s global authority, stepped in to do just that. “In January, 17 WTO members, including the European Union, China and Brazil, began setting up a parallel WTO court without the U.S,” reported Politico June 14. free trade, and international rules. So where does that leave American

The proof is in the post-war pudding. farmers and ranchers? U.S. farmers and ranchers have domiHere’s where: The pandemic has nated global ag export markets for crushed 25 percent of the world econodecades, from decidedly anti-democratic Cold War enemies like the Soviet See GUEBERT, pg. 5