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NEFB says U.S. hasn’t made trade a focus this past year

The Nebraska Farm Bureau says the Biden administration must do more with trade to help U.S. producers stay competitive.  

Jordan Dux is the Director of National Affairs. “They’ve let trade negotiating power lapse. They’ve failed to follow through with potential grievance with the EU. We’re still waiting on potentially joining the CPTPP conversation.  I think that would be a good thing from our standpoint,” Dux said. “We need to see some action on trade.  We’ve been sitting far too long, for an entire year here.”

He tells Brownfield despite China not meeting its Phase One purchase requirements, China is still the largest customer for US ag products. “But you can see very clearly that China has been in the market place. You can see it from the amount of product they’re buying. You can see where agriculture commodity prices are at.”

Dux says there’s no indication another trade agreement is coming after Phase One expires this year. “We don’t know. We don’t know what next year brings. We don’t know what China is going to look like and we don’t want all of our eggs in that basket either. We need to expand markets outside of China.”

He says Japan and Africa should be markets the administration explores.

Brownfield interviewed Dux at the Nebraska Farm Bureau Convention.