Yet sometimes the conventional wisdom is worth proving because the stakes are so high. A good example is a new study from the Department of Agriculture. It asks an important question in its title: “Are Competitors’ Free Trade Agreements Putting U.S. Agricultural Exporters at a Disadvantage?”
Ответ, конечно, is yes. The real shocker is that our political leaders don’t seem concerned enough to do anything about it.
Free-trade agreements are an effective way for economic partners to exchange goods and services across borders, as they lower trade barriers by mutual consent. Just about every country on the planet is party to at least one FTA. Last December, По данным Ð’Ñемирной торговой организации, 290 FTAs were in force. Most had been negotiated since 2000 and more are on the way.
President Obama made the case for FTAs earlier this year, in his State of the Union address: “The more we export, the more jobs we create here at home.”
Давным-давно, the United States worked hard to boost exports by striking trade deals. Между 2003 и 2007, it finished FTAs with 16 Ñтраны, including individual pacts with Australia, Бахрейн, Чили, Марокко, Oman, Перу, and Singapore as well as the regional Central American Free Trade Agreement with Costa Rica, Доминиканская республика, СпаÑитель, Гватемала, ГондураÑ, and Nicaragua.
The benefits are crystal-clear. Ð’ мае 19, a company in Chile agreed to buy five new airplanes from Boeing for almost $822 миллиона, in a transaction that will help keep plenty of American workers busy. This is a direct result of the U.S.-Chile FTA, утвержден в 2004. One of its provisions eliminated Chilean tariffs on the purchase of commercial aircraft.
Despite this stunning success, the United States has practically quit the business of trade diplomacy. It has concluded agreements with Colombia, Панама, and South Korea but they’ve languished for years, waiting for the congressional approval that never seems to come.
The delay has punished American farmers, according to the USDA report.
That’s because the rest of the world isn’t waiting for the United States to jump back into the trade game. Other countries continue to negotiate FTAs. Every deal that doesn’t include the United States has the potential to put our producers at a competitive disadvantage.
Consider the case of Colombia. It’s the most important South American market for U.S. ÑкÑпорт фермы. Каждый год, Colombians buy almost $1 billion in wheat, кукуруза, Ñоевые бобы, and other American-grown products.
Ð’ поÑледнее времÑ, Colombia signed an FTA with the Mercosur trading bloc, whose members include Argentina, БразилиÑ, Парагвай, и Уругвай. These countries gained an immediate advantage over U.S. сельскохозяйственные товары–a margin of 15 percent for wheat and 7 в 8 процент для кукурузы.
“These preferences appear to have appreciably reduced U.S. shares in these [Colombian] commodity markets in 2009 and 2010,” says the USDA report. The cost of American farmers’ totals hundreds of millions of dollars–and it’s a price we’ll keep on paying until Washington resolves to correct it.
The news could go from bad to worse because Canada and Colombia are on the verge of their own FTA. It would make Canadian farm products sold in Colombia less expensive than U.S. farm products. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in the obvious to know the result: Canadian exports will surge and American exports will slump.
The solution is staggeringly simple. Congress must approve the free-trade agreement with Colombia that we negotiated years ago. That way, American farmers will compete on a level playing field with our competitors in Canada and South America. A similar logic works for the FTAs with Panama and South Korea.
Yet our leaders in Washington refuse to cooperate with this reality or with each other. The latest hold-up is a dispute over Trade Adjustment Assistance, a $2-billion program of questionable effectiveness that attempts to help workers displaced by foreign trade.
Unless the politicians solve these squabbles, voters may decide they need new leadership. It’s obvious.
John Reifsteck is a corn and soybean producer in western Champaign County Illinois. He serves as a Board Member of Truth About Trade & Технологии. www.truthabouttrade.org