March 11, 2010

Free trade requires competition, collaboration

NORFOLK—Brazil, Canada, the European Union and the United States are simultaneously competitors and partners in the global trading market.

“Our mutual competitiveness is best served through partnerships,” said Chris Leggett, agriculture counselor at the Canadian Embassy in Washington. He said Canada and the United States are “more like members of an association who come together with common concerns.”

Leggett and two other diplomats spoke March 4 at the second annual International Agricultural Trade Workshop. The event was designed to explore challenges and opportunities for expanded exports of local, regional and national agricultural goods.

“Virginia agriculture plays a significant role in international trade, and these speakers from Brazil, Canada and the EU recognize the importance of working together to increase trade opportunities,” said Spencer Neale, senior assistant director of commodity marketing for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.

“There is plenty of room to increase bilateral trade,” said Marcelo Soares, agricultural attaché at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington. Brazil averages $161 billion in agricultural exports and $120 billion worth of agricultural imports. Over the past decade, it has become an important exporter of meat.

Dan Rotenberg, agriculture counselor for the European Commission’s delegation in Washington, said EU imports from the United States have been stagnant while imports from Brazil and Argentina have increased in recent years.

For many years, the EU has banned beef raised with growth hormones, which is a common U.S. practice. “Good or bad, sound science, protectionism and politics all seem to play a role in trade negotiations,” Neale said.

There has been some talk of a unilateral trade agreement in the Western Hemisphere, which would create a “free flow of goods and services,” said Dick Crowder, adjunct professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and former U.S. chief agriculture negotiator. “But politics is in the way.”

Establishing a free trade agreement with numerous countries would expand opportunities for agriculture and “would be beneficial to everyone,” Leggett said.

Contact Neale at 804-290-1153.