Tariffs and lost soybean sales grab the headlines, but that’s not the whole picture, not even close. There are huge challenges created by outside forces that US agriculture and forest products exporters can’t do much about.
For example, the many facets of the US-China trade “relationship” are felt most acutely by AgTC members, as China is the largest customer of our nation’s agriculture and forest products. Similarly, we cannot stop Brazil from converting hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforest into farmland, nor China from building global infrastructure, including ports in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Africa, to enhance its agricultural supply chains.
But the US must stop inflicting wounds on our own supply chain to retain and grow domestic and foreign demand for our products.
The US Trade Representative imposed fees on container and bulk ships that deliver our agriculture to overseas customers, while our foreign competitors were not burdened with these fees. And those fees were only suspended for a year. Will they return?
We got into trade tit-for-tats with the most populous country in the world: India. Now, Australia is happy to ship their almonds to India, replacing ours.
China is building automated port terminals around the world. Our response? To ban automation at our ports.
We have the lowest allowable truck weights in the world, forcing US exporters to hire two trucks for every one that Canadians, Europeans and Argentinians need to bring the same amount of agriculture to their ports. Uneconomic and unrealistic electric truck mandates have dramatically disrupted and increased the cost of moving agriculture to marine terminals.
Legislation to address cargo theft is stuck on Capitol Hill. When is our government going to take this debilitating crime wave seriously?
Our agriculture exports will continue to be reduced by outside forces, which AgTC will continue to expose and contest. But our attention and efforts will not be diverted from the impediments on efficient affordable transportation, imposed by our own governments.