News

Trade policies shifting to transactional partnerships

A dairy economist and policy analyst says geopolitical interests have shifted which has unfortunately captured agriculture in the middle.

“The world of free trade, the world of free trade organizations and very orderly dispute mechanisms – all of that is about to collapse, we are entering a more disorderly world.”

Marin Bozic with the University of Minnesota tells Brownfield since WWII, U.S. trade policy has been driven by geopolitical merits to protect against the Soviet Union which meant the U.S. created policies with uneven trade to build a coalition.

“What we are now seeing is the United States move away from a coalition building trade policy to a very transactional trade policy.”      

Today, he says, the shale revolution has made the U.S. a net energy exporter; sources of cheap labor are becoming limited and advancements artificial intelligence are also rearranging the needs in trade agreements.

“It means a rocky road; it means we will face retaliatory tariffs.  But, in the long run, I’m actually optimistic because aggressive negotiating strategies will eventually yield more market access to U.S. agriculture.” 

He’s forecasting a new agreement with Japan and the USMCA ratified before the end of the year.