The department's fear long has been that protests would overshadow issues such as lowering foreign tariffs and export subsidies to help Columbia Basin farmers. Steve Lutz, president of the Washington Apple Commission, said he felt safer Wednesday than Tuesday, when anarchy reigned in downtown Seattle. And he couldn't help but cheer that Clinton mentioned apples over and over in a speech at the Port of Seattle. Clinton was enthusiastic about apples. Clinton's speech, distributed to media by fax, hit hard on opening new markets for Washington fruit and farm products from across the United States.
Farmers are the lifeblood of our country.
But we cannot preserve family farms unless we sell more of what we grow to more people around the world. In a related issue, Washington Gov. Gary Locke used the WTO to meet with Mexican trade officials he met with during his summer trade mission. After the Washington delegation went home, progress toward getting frozen U.S. french fries into Mexico stalled. Copyright 1999 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.