President-elect Donald Trump is getting a welcoming handshake from farm groups often identified with Democrats or populists, not just those touting free enterprise and low taxes. The National Farmers Union said in a letter to Trump that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, backed by many farm groups, is a threat to the rural economy, so “we hope to work with your administration on fair trade deals.”
NFU president Roger Johnson said there was substantial agreement between the farm group and Trump on trade pacts. “He promised he’s going to re-do these trade agreements. They [rural voters] gave him a chance.”
A Trump administration could look at “relentless corporate mergers,” said the NFU, in a reference to three blockbuster mergers that would re-shape the seed and ag-chemical sector. “The continuous rate of mergers have provided farmers fewer farm input options and driven up the cost of doing business.” It also said a robust farm bill is needed. “Given the difficult farm economy, we hope to work closely with your administration to quickly provide relief for struggling farmers and ranchers.”
Bryan Hanson, the president of an activist ranch group, told the Pierre (SD) Capital Journal that the Trump administration “is as favorable to the cattle industry as we have seen in a long, long time.” Trump’s criticism of free-trade agreements aligns with views long held by his group, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF). “We definitely think that it’s the free-trade agreements that killed us. They basically opened up our market to imports of beef from Third-World countries where they can operate on shoestring budgets,” Hanson told the newspaper.
Cattle prices set record highs in 2014 as tight supplies collided with rising domestic and export demand. Ranchers expanded herds to pursue profits but prices tumbled in late 2015 and throughout this year. R-CALF chief executive Bill Bullard told a crowd of ranchers at a sales barn near Pierre that U.S. trade policy backs “stupid trade”— opening the border to beef imports at the same time it encourages exports.
R-CALF was instrumental in passage of the U.S. country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) law that required packages of beef and other major types of meat to say where the animals yielding the meat were born, raised and slaughtered. Congress removed beef and pork from the labeling last in December 2015 to avoid $1 billion in trade retaliation from Canada and Mexico, winners of a WTO decision that said the law distorted cross-border trade in meat and livestock.