Agriculture is one of the few U.S. industries that consistently runs a trade surplus, posting a positive balance of trade every year since 1960. The United States along with agriculture, must be at the negotiating table in the next WTO round in a meaningful way, with trade negotiating authority, to ensure that this trade surplus continues. The ability of U.S. agriculture to gain and maintain a share of global markets depends on many factors, including obtaining strong trade agreements that are properly enforced, enhancing the administration's ability to negotiate increased market access for U.S. agriculture and building in the necessary changes to the WTO dispute settlement process to ensure timely resolution of disputes. When Congress passed the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, it phased out farm price supports, making U.S. agriculture more dependent on the world market. American farmers and ranchers produce an abundant supply of commodities far in excess of domestic needs and their productivity continues to increase.
Exports are agriculture's source of future growth in sales and income.
As you are well aware, U.S. agriculture is reeling from low commodity prices. Given an abundant domestic supply and a stable U.S. population rate, the job of expanding existing market access and opening new export markets for agriculture is more important than ever. Agriculture's longstanding history of a balance of trade surplus will not continue if we are relegated to the sidelines as new negotiations in agriculture commence. Moreover, global food demand is expanding rapidly and more than 95 percent of the world's consumers live outside U.S. borders. Despite significant progress in opening U.S. markets, agriculture remains one of the most protected and subsidized sectors of the world economy.