At the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, KC Sheperd caught up with U.S. Grains Council (USGC) Director of Trade Policy Andrew Brandt.
The USGC is composed of nine offices around the world tasked with promoting various U.S. grains such as corn, barley, and sorghum in foreign markets, as well as helping to shape trade policies domestically.
“I, myself, do the trade policy piece of anywhere from tariffs, free trade agreements, and I spend a surprising amount of time on sanitary and phytosanitary or SPS issues, specifically related to MRL or maximum Residue Limits, which is related to residual crop protection residue,” Brandt shared.
He said that increasingly, instead of tariffs, other countries are setting such low MRL numbers that U.S. grains can rarely meet.
The USGC’s biggest post-election concerns include the biotech dispute with Mexico, new sustainability mandates, which Brandt counts as both concerns and opportunities, and consumer preferences.
He explained, “There is a lot there to try to satisfy, because in some cases, governments are dong mandates of how we should grow a certain crop, or like the EU deforestation regulations.”
Another resulting concern of the election is the potential for a new round of tariffs. “The Trump administration has been saying they are going to enact tariffs,” he said. “We don’t have the final details on what those tariffs will look like, yet. I don’t think our farmers will be hurt by our tariffs. However, the retaliatory tariffs some of these countries might throw up could have an impact on, not only where our bushels can go, but certainly on the prices that our farmers can receive.”
Brandt hopes that the tariffs will be a means to an end as leverage to get what the Trump administration wants. “Our hope is that it is a temporary leverage strategy and not a permanent change in the marketplace,” he said. “Specifically to where we get permanent retaliatory tariffs towards us that tilts the playing field away from us. We have enough competition from our South American friends already, that if we get hit with long-term retaliatory tariffs from some of these key markets, that will have an impact.”
One thing that U.S. grains has going for it is outstanding quality. “There is a quality piece and there is our ability to move it, and there is the financing of it with the dollar as the world’s reserve currency – that is all in our favor, yet,” he admitted. “Those are still all very good things. By and large, we are competitive on those fronts, but sometimes tariffs get in the way or just the ability of how much production Brazil can bring online, yet.”
