Still, as remote as this issue which the House of Representatives voted on this week might seem, it raises questions worth considering. It means that goods which we import from another country will get a standard tariff treatment, without additional taxes jacking up the prices. In return, the products which we export to that same country receive the same fair treatment.
Few industries know how to answer that better than agriculture.
In fact, the American Farm Bureau has called China the most important growth market for U.S. agriculture in the 21st Century. Particularly at a time like now when American farmers are suffering a devastating economic downturn, exports offer a lifeline to the thousands of our producers. Increasingly, the cotton and wheat, corn and soybeans, grapes and apples which we are producing right here will be consumed by people half-way around the earth. Both they and we benefit from this new global Farmers Market. As a matter of fact, if every Chinese man and woman bought just one shirt made with United States cotton, our Texas cotton farmers could sell more than three-quarters of our annual crop to this one market.