Trade Cong. Goodlatte

Trade negotiations are very important to American agriculture and the work of this Committee. We continue to stay tuned to ongoing and emerging negotiations and work to gather feedback from our agricultural producers on how our trade policies affect them.

This includes ongoing multilateral trade negotiations and all regional and bilateral negotiations. It also includes oversight and enforcement of past agreements, including the agreements reached prior to China’s accession to the WTO and other pending accessions to the WTO, such as Russia. It means looking closely at problems U.S. agriculture faces regarding sanitary and phytosanitary issues.

United States agriculture depends on exports and a vibrant trade policy is important to United States farmers and ranchers. We want to seek greater opportunity for our agricultural products and trade negotiations can make that possible. U.S. agricultural markets are already open to imports and our tariffs are low---agricultural tariffs worldwide average about 62 percent, while U.S. agricultural tariffs are 12 percent.

As any farmer or rancher will tell you it takes a leap of faith to begin to farm. There are so many variables and things that cannot be known---such as the weather, prices and markets. Despite all these things, and more, we are grateful there are people in the United States who choose to farm.

Choosing to enter into negotiations for trade agreements also takes a leap of faith and the United States has made that choice because it can be good for our farmers and ranchers back home. President Bush says that agriculture is the cornerstone of U.S. trade policy and we want to make sure that the cornerstone builds a strong foundation that will help U.S. farmers and ranchers compete in worldwide trade.

It is to the advantage of U.S. agriculture that we continue to open markets and remove barriers to our agriculture exports.