It's actually about our ability to deliver on the promise to open markets more fully around the world for our farmers, ranchers, food processors and everyone else who is part of America's food industry. The sugar program is the Achilles heel of U.S. trade policy. Let's look at the U.S. record in international trade, and the central challenges facing us. History will mark the years since 1993 as an extraordinary period of trade expansion. By any measure, markets around the world are far more open than they were a decade ago, thanks to U.S. leadership.
Trade is also vital to the growth of value-added and processed foods and feedstuffs.
Global trade in processed food is growing twice as fast as bulk commodity trade, and consumer products now account for a greater percentage of U.S. agricultural exports than raw commodities. The progress in opening markets around the world has undeniably benefitted U.S. agriculture and the food sector. The Uruguay Round was a landmark accomplishment, which finally began to bring agricultural trade under fair and internationally accepted rules. It subjected export subsidies and trade-distorting domestic support measures to specific limits, reducing them as well. Through the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, WTO members agreed to use science-based sanitary and phytosanitary standards to protect human, animal and plant life and health, taking away, at least in principle, one of foreign governments' most powerful protectionist tools.