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| McCain supporter: Trade is key |
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The statistics are clear:
•96 percent of the world’s population lives outside the United States.
•56 percent of the new people entering the world between today, and 2025 will be in South and Southeast Asia.
•That same region will account for 44 percent of the new income created in the world by 2025.
•U.S. ag productivity growth is about 2 percent per year while food demand growth is only 0.8 percent per year.
•U.S. ag exports were a low $7.3 billion in 1970 - this year’s forecast is $114 billion.
And the story is clear ... which is why the Obama view towards agricultural trade is so troubling. Trade has been and will continue to be key to the long-term economic health and prosperity of our food and agriculture sector. Without expanding export markets, farm prices and incomes would be significantly lower today. We have far more capacity than needed to meet our own mature market’s food requirements.
More importantly, our competitive and highly efficient food and agriculture system is challenged to feed the world’s population. The new people and new purchasing power entering the world over the next few decades are coming in regions without our same production capacity. And, they are consuming more grains, dairy and livestock products - creating huge opportunities for U.S. exports.
Trade agreements must be negotiated - just as we seek market access in other countries, so too are those countries looking to our highly developed, lucrative market.
With trade come trade-offs ... and with trade-offs, there are perceived winners and losers.
Certain agricultural commodities benefit more under different trade agreements - but it cannot be disputed that free and open trade has been a win for all of agriculture. We cannot rely only on “market promotion programs” to expand trade.
We cannot give up on opening new markets with countries such as Colombia, Panama, South Korea and others. And, we cannot re-open and renegotiate trade agreements that are fully in place.
Sen. Obama does not support fully open and free trade. He will reopen NAFTA. He will walk away from future trade deals.
He will put agriculture’s trade future squarely in promotion programs led by trade associations - not in comprehensive market access negotiations with the weight of the U.S. government behind them.
He is most concerned about labor and environmental protections in existing and future agreements - and will undo, give up and negotiate away benefits to agriculture in exchange for these other nebulous standards.
The global marketplace is here to stay ... U.S. agriculture dominates in it and, more importantly, depends on it. Sen. John McCain understands this and will do all in his ability to expand international trade, bring our food and ag products to more foreign markets, and boost the profitability of our farmers.
To maintain and build our competitiveness in this global agricultural arena, there’s only one ticket to support - only one ticket has made this a priority - McCain-Palin.
Beth Bechdol
Auburn, Ind. |
| 10/22/2008 |
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