Page 8 - Export or Bust eBook
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• Continued advances in agricultural production methods, transportation infrastructure and
shipping capacity, and the advance of international electronic financial transactions all enhance
international trade.
• Also, the U.S. dollar exchange rate against currencies of many U.S. trade competitors has
softened lately, making U.S. farm products cheaper abroad.
• What’s more, reducing trade barriers through many existing trade agreements has helped a lot.
USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson says U.S. partners in free trade agreements – Canada,
Mexico, South Korea, Chile, Colombia and other countries – account for nearly 45 percent of
U.S. agricultural exports.
Thoroughfare across the Pacific
Geographically and demographically, the biggest growth markets, and probably best growth
opportunities, lie across the Pacific, and U.S. agriculture has been beating a path across that ocean.
David Salmonsen, senior congressional relations director for the American Farm Bureau Federation,
explains why: “You look at all the numbers, you look at where the GDP growth is, where the trade
growth is, and it’s all east Asia, Southeast Asia ... led by China, of course, and other countries in that
region that are the growth markets.”
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