With President Trump ready to impose trade sanctions on China for hijacking U.S. technology, his chief agricultural negotiator told a farm conference that the administration is defending agriculture, too. Newly installed ag negotiator Gregg Doud said that “too many producers globally” don’t follow World Trade Organization rules and that the United States would challenge violators — China in particular.
Doud pointed to U.S. cases at the WTO that accuse China of excessive corn, wheat, and rice subsidies and of manipulating its import rules to suppress shipments of U.S. grain, costing American farmers billions of dollars in sales annually. The complaints were filed during the final months of the Obama administration and are being carried forward by the new administration.
Doud’s speech at a farm policy conference was a subtle reply to fears among farm groups that China will target U.S. agricultural exports in response to Trump’s tariffs. China is the No. 1 customer for U.S. farm exports. Overall, soybeans and civilian aircraft are the top U.S. exports to China.
The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Pat Roberts, expressed unease over the use of tariffs to settle trade disputes and displeasure at the lack of action by the administration to open overseas markets. When Trump took office, the White House said it would pursue bilateral trade agreements that maximized U.S. access to foreign markets.
“We haven’t seen any trade bills yet,” said Roberts to reporters. “There’s a lot of frustration out there” in farm country.