Feb 23, 2012
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The Truth About Trade

RSS By: Dean Kleckner, AgWeb.com

Dean is Chairman of ''The Truth About Trade & Technology'' - a nonprofit advocacy group led by American farmers.

Powered By Biotechnology

Feb 16, 2012

 By Reg Clause:  Jefferson, Iowa

 
 
Imagine a consumer food product with an edgy image trying to call the bluff of anti-biotech activists.
 
What if Mountain Dew advertised not just cleverly-named flavors on its colorful cans--Baja Blast, Code Red, LiveWire, Voltage, etc.--but also that its drinks are "powered by biotechnology"?
 
They already are, in fact. One of the chief ingredients of Mountain Dew is high-fructose corn syrup. That’s a fancy way of saying "sugar derived from corn."
 
Because the vast majority of corn and soybeans harvested in the United States are genetically modified, Americans put biotech food into their bellies every day. If they aren’t sipping it in their sodas, they’re chewing chips made with it or enjoying meat that comes from livestock raised on it.
 
Most of the products stocked on America’s grocery-store shelves can make a plausible claim that they’re "powered by biotechnology."
 
So perhaps they should, if only to show up the professional protestors who want to slap warning labels on every food item that relies on modern methods of agricultural production. These activists seem to think that Americans don’t know what they’re eating--and that they’d recoil in horror if they realized that farmers use genetically improved technologies on a daily basis.
 
But the more important thing is to show American consumers the respect they deserve.  While it’s almost certainly true that most Americans couldn’t explain the finer points of recombinant DNA, they do trust their food. They know it’s safe and abundant and that it comes from farmers who put what they grow on their own dinner tables.
 
Do we really think consumers won’t rearrange their dietary habits if food companies are fully candid on the label about biotech?  It’s what we don’t know that worries us most. Does such a label reveal something scary or remove a reason to wonder?
 
Yet the anti-technology idealists who hate biotechnology believe that mandatory labels are a smart political strategy--and they’re trying to put the issue in front of voters.  They want to cast the resistance to labeling in a sinister way.
 
They’ve turned to politics out of desperation as a "Plan B", having lost at the regulatory level. The Food and Drug Administration has refused to require the labels they crave, for the perfectly good reason that GM foods pose no special concern to consumers. From the standpoint of human health, they’re the same as foods that don’t include GM ingredients.
 
The FDA is hardly alone in reaching this conclusion. It’s joined by the American Dietetic Association, the American Medical Association, the Research Council of the National Academies of Science, and the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization. They’ve all studied biotech foods and have determined that they’re perfectly safe for people to eat.
 
In California, activists are hoping voters will reach a different conclusion--or, to put it more precisely, they’re hoping they can persuade voters to arrive at a different conclusion. They intend to put an initiative on the November ballot. If it qualifies and voters approve it, the state would require food labels to announce the presence of GMO ingredients.
 
If this happens, details will matter. A mandatory label could require a simple line, such as "This product may contain GM ingredients." Or it could demand a biohazard symbol, which of course would be absurd.
 
What the activists really want is a national policy--a federal requirement to label GM food--and most likely they want it to look like a warning label.
 
They’re attracting high-powered allies. Just last month, Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of the organic yogurt company Stonyfield, announced that he’s stepping down from his job and will spend his time pushing for the mandatory labeling of GM foods.
 
A lot of the money for these efforts in California and at the federal level will come from the organic-food industry, which believes it can achieve a market advantage if non-organic products have to wear a label that will raise unnecessary questions in the mind of consumers.
 
How about we all stop playing these silly games and contributing to the confusion and potential mistrust of consumers for technical progress on food safety and quality.  Consider labeling, control the details and move ahead proudly on behalf of our customers.
 
Reg Clause owns a 4th generation family farm near his home in Jefferson, Iowa.  His next generation grows corn, soybeans and cattle and the 6th generation is there too.  Reg volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology.
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Numbers Matter

Feb 09, 2012

The US Must Increase Export Volume AND Dollar Value

 
By Bill Horan, Rockwell City, Iowa
 
 
They say that numbers don’t lie. To know the whole truth, however, you need the right numbers.
 
That’s why we should treat President Obama’s latest boasts about exports with skepticism.
 
"Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years," said President Obama in his State of the Union address last month. "With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule."
 
In two senses, he’s correct. In a third sense--a very important one--he’s misleading.
 
Let’s start by giving the president credit where he deserves it. President Obama rightly praised those three bipartisan trade agreements, approved by Congress in the fall. The deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea will create new export opportunities for American farmers and manufacturers. That means more jobs here in the United States.
 
If President Obama can add to this positive momentum by completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership--a multilateral agreement involving the United States and Pacific Rim nations, possibly including the big prize of Japan--then he will go down in history as a champion of free trade. He’ll also make it easier for Americans to boost exports not just during the five-year timeframe of his promise, but for a long time into the future.
 
The dollar value of U.S. exports also is rising--and for this, the administration deserves praise as well.
 
But let’s not trick ourselves into thinking this is a world-beating achievement. President Obama made his pledge in 2010, meaning that when he promised to double exports, he was looking at numbers from 2009. That’s his baseline.
 
The President enjoys a big advantage by starting with those 2009 figures. Due to the global recession, U.S. exports dipped in 2009. They were worth $2.09 trillion, less than they were worth in both 2007 ($2.14 trillion) and 2008 ($2.38 trillion). So a portion of any increase above the 2009 figure was simply a recovery.
 
Perhaps this is nothing to take for granted. No iron law says the value of exports must rise all the time, no matter what. Yet a certain amount of the progress we’ve seen since that State of the Union pledge has involved a return to normality, not the breaking of new ground. We must understand this fact clearly.
 
As it happens, the value of exports in 2010 was about the same as in 2008.  So 2009 was an abnormally bad year that defied a general upward trend--and an unusually good starting point for the President to make a promise. Between 2009 and 2010, exports jumped about 16 percent. They’ll jump again in 2011, thanks in some measure to a record-setting year for farm exports. (This year may be different: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently warned that farm exports in 2012 probably won’t match the mark they set in 2011.)
 
We don’t have complete data for last year yet, but it looks like the rise in the value of exports between 2009 and 2011 will approach 40 percent. So, despite all of these caveats, President Obama has every right to say he’s "on track" to meeting his promise of two years ago.
 
There’s just one problem: The Obama administration is using the wrong measurement.
 
The dollar value of exports is important and we should applaud its rise. But even more critical is the volume of exports--the amount of raw stuff that we’re selling to customers in other countries. This is what really counts.
 
On this measure, unfortunately, we aren’t keeping pace. Agriculture has boomed in value. Between the crop years ending in August 2009 and August 2011, however, the volume of our corn exports actually declined.  In 2009, the U.S. exported over 47 million metric tons (MMT)) of corn, with a value of $9.3 billion all over the world. In 2011, the dollar value of corn exports rose to $12.9 billion but we sold just over 45 MMT. By the time we finish 2012, estimates suggest that the volume of corn we sold to our overseas customers will have decreased by 14 percent since 2009. 
 
We still lack adequate data from other industries to draw firm conclusions about the real health of our exports, but initial signs suggest that we’re nowhere near doubling our volume by 2015.
 
Dollar value is a reflection of many factors, including fluctuations in commodity markets and inflation. Volume is simply a better indicator of true economic health.
 
President Obama wants us to think our exports are doing fine--but the truth is that we can and must do better.
 
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa.  Bill volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology www.truthabouttrade.org
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Take the President's China Trade Enforcement Unit Back to the Drawing Board

Feb 02, 2012

 By Dean Kleckner

 
 
"I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products," said President Obama last week, in his State of the Union address.
 
He also indicated that he’s willing to risk a trade war with China, possibly leading to a result that’s the exact opposite of his stated goal: the swift closure of new markets for U.S. goods and services.
 
President Obama entered the White House three years ago as a protectionist candidate who spoke of withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Once in office, he felt the burden of responsible governance and reversed course, promising to double exports in five years and embracing the free-trade agreements negotiated by his predecessor.
 
Last week, however, the president switched back to campaign mode. He defended his record on trade, but also went on the offensive against China, announcing the creation of a "Trade Enforcement Unit" that will investigate "unfair trading practices", search for "counterfeit or unsafe goods," and file formal complaints, presumably with the World Trade Organization.
 
The populist rhetoric was pitched at a public that’s always a little nervous about free trade. A few months ago, polls suggested that Americans were split on the merits of the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea as well as proposals to slap special tariffs on Chinese imports.
 
President Obama’s speech also served the political purpose of keeping stride with Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate who goes out of his way to bash China.
 
Sticking up for China isn’t easy, of course. Its approach to intellectual property rights is akin to organized banditry. This problem grabbed the attention of every American who uses the Internet on January 18, when Wikipedia went dark and Google redacted its logo to protest legislation aimed at protecting copyright holders. China also keeps its currency at artificially low levels, giving its exports an advantage in global markets.
 
These are genuine problems. But a trade war won’t solve them. It would raise prices on consumers, hurt export opportunities for businesses, and fail to achieve its main objectives. None of this would help the struggling U.S. economy.
 
Consider the administration’s special tariff on low-priced tires from China. If the United States initiates a trade war against Beijing, historians may point to this skirmish as the opening salvo in a wider conflict.
 
In his State of the Union address, President Obama praised his policy, adopted in 2009, of slapping special duties on cheap tires from China. "Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires," said the president.
 
That’s simply not true. As a report in the Wall Street Journal recently showed, this bit of targeted protectionism probably didn’t save a single American job. Manufacturing simply moved from China to Indonesia, Mexico, and Thailand. "So far as saving American jobs, it just isn’t working," said a spokesman for the 6,000-member Tire Industry Association.
 
Meanwhile, China retaliated with its own tariffs on American chicken exports, doubling the prices of some products and shrinking the U.S. share of China’s chicken market. The move was so damaging that Ambassador Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, complained that China was "threatening American jobs."
 
The Obama administration can’t have it both ways, claiming to save jobs when it pursues protectionism and griping about threatened jobs when competitors strike back.
 
This illustrates the weird logic of trade wars. A dispute that the Obama administration thought would involve only a sub-sector of the tire trade suddenly hurt American agriculture. Trade wars have a terrible tendency to spread through unrelated industries like a deadly contagion, until they infect the whole economy.
 
There are better ways to confront Chinese malfeasance. Congress should try to write a law that protects intellectual property rights but doesn’t make Internet companies go hysterical. Encouraging China to let the value of its currency rise may be even trickier, but old-fashioned diplomacy is a better option than brass-knuckled protectionism.
 
President Obama says he’ll "go anywhere" to help sell American products. When it comes to his "Trade Enforcement Unit," he should go back to the drawing board.
 
Dean Kleckner chairs Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org)
 
Note: a version of this column first appeared this week in The Washington Times.
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Don’t Mess With the Single-Focused USTR

Jan 26, 2012

 By Dean Kleckner

 
I have a message for President Obama: Don’t mess with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
 
Earlier this month, the President spoke of the need to improve the government’s performance--and he amplified this theme on Tuesday night, in his State of the Union address.
 
"The executive branch also needs to change," he said. "Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated, and remote."
 
True enough.
 
Then he continued: "That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people."
 
It sounds like a great idea. Yet the details of the President’s recent proposal to reform one area of the federal government contain a serious defect that would undermine the very principles he applauds.
 
President Obama wants to merge the core functions of the Department of Commerce with six agencies: the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Trade and Development Agency, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
 
Bureaucratic reorganization is often an excellent idea, especially if it eliminates wasteful spending by wiping out redundancy. The White House claims that this particular consolidation would reduce the federal payroll by as many as 2,000 jobs, saving taxpayers $3 billion in ten years. That’s probably a stretch, but even a fraction of this amount is a goal worth pursuing.
 
So much of President Obama’s proposal has merit.
 
Yet it also contains a fatal flaw. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) works very well right now. It should remain independent, reporting directly to the president.
 
USTR is a model agency for government, operating at an astonishing level of efficiency. I’ve seen it around the world.  They do so much with so few.  Only about 200 people work for it, meaning that there are more than 10,000 federal workers for every employee of the trade office.
 
At the same time, USTR delivers big benefits by negotiating trade deals with other countries that help Americans sell goods and services to foreign customers.
 
During his State of the Union speech, President Obama singled out the accomplishments of USTR. "We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world," he said.  "Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago."
 
He might have added that American farmers and ranchers also will enjoy new opportunities to sell what they grow and raise.
 
These trade pacts will create thousands of jobs on farms and in factories. They would not exist without USTR. There probably is not a government agency that achieves better results with fewer resources.
 
Given that USTR does so much so well, we shouldn’t try to change the way it works. Stuffing it inside the Department of Commerce would downgrade its status, eliminate its independence, and thwart its objectives.
 
The United States needs to have a trade diplomat who possesses genuine stature, rather than a spot on an organization chart that puts the office below the head of a third-tier cabinet secretary. Not only should the trade chief speak directly for the president, but foreign leaders must understand that the Oval Office is just a phone call away. Otherwise, they won’t engage in serious trade negotiations with us.
 
What’s more, the Department of Commerce is home to a bundle of bureaucracies, from the Census Bureau to the National Weather Service. The tiny trade office would become lost amid the department’s multitude of agencies and purposes. Parts of the department aren’t even oriented toward expanding trade, but rather toward protecting industries from foreign competition.
 
Our trade negotiators should have a single focus on expanding U.S. economic opportunities, without having to worry about the distractions of petty turf wars.
 
So President Obama should move forward with his proposed reorganization of the Department of Commerce and several related agencies--but he should leave USTR alone, in recognition of its unique contributions to our prosperity.
 
Dean Kleckner chairs Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org)
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An Antidote of Truth for The Atlantic’s Misinformation

Jan 19, 2012

 By Bill Horan – Rockwell City, Iowa

 
 
"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts," said the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
 
The editors of The Atlantic should hang this line in their newsroom. If they had paid more attention to its wisdom, they might have saved their magazine from an embarrassment last week.
 
On January 9, The Atlantic’s website published an article whose headline won’t win any awards for subtlety: "The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods," by Ari LeVaux.
 
It sounded like a press release from Greenpeace, or one of the other radical groups that crusade against agricultural technology with ideological fervor. The content wasn’t much better. It showed what can happen when people who don’t know much about science try to write about it.
 
The Atlantic should know better. It’s one of the great magazines in the history of American journalism. It was founded more than a century and a half ago by the country’s intellectual leaders--figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It made its name publishing authors like Mark Twain. The Atlantic has earned a well-deserved reputation for excellence.
 
But it will squander this legacy if it continues to publish trash as it did last week.
 
LeVaux is a newspaper columnist who, according to his personal website, writes restaurant reviews for the Albuquerque Weekly Alibi, a publication that describes itself as an "alternative newsweekly." How this makes him an authority on genetics and food is unclear. In his article for The Atlantic, however, LeVaux claimed to have discovered a troubling connection between genetically modified food and human health. He tossed around terms chosen for maximum fright value, such as "metabolic disorders" and "cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes."
 
LeVaux based his allegations on a paper by a team of Chinese scientists and published in Cell Research. It concerned microRNA, which are tiny sequences of RNA.
 
There was just one problem: The paper in Cell Research said absolutely nothing about GM food. The connection between microRNA and the health of the billions of people who eat GM food daily was entirely hypothetical.
 
Yet ordinary readers of LeVaux’s article wouldn’t have known this. The Atlantic is a general-interest magazine, not a peer-reviewed journal for scientific experts. Its readers most likely never have heard of microRNA or, if they have, possess only a sketchy understanding of what it is and what it does.
 
Before long, LeVaux’s provocative claims were tweeting around the world. It was the most emailed article on The Atlantic’s website.
 
This is a case study in how misinformation is born--and how it can spread, like a virus.
 
Almost immediately, however, scientists fought back with the antidote of truth. On the website of Scientific American--another highly respected magazine--Christie Wilcox published a compelling rebuttal titled "The Very Real Scaremongering of Ari LeVaux." And on a blog called The Biology Files, Emily Willingham presented her own devastating response.
 
Discover magazine summed up the controversy on its website: "For anyone familiar with the paper [LaVaux] referred to, or with molecular biology in general, the article was full of conflation and sloppy logic."
 
By the end of the week, LeVaux was backpedaling. On his personal website, he admitted to "many unfortunate errors" in his original article. He wrote a revised version for AlterNet, a left-wing website, with a new headline: "How Genetically Modified Foods Could Affect Our Health in Unexpected Ways." Even this toned-down headline was a gross and misleading overstatement, but at least it appeared in a venue that doesn’t carry The Atlantic’s prestigious stamp of approval.
 
Genetically modified food is perfectly safe and nobody has ever shown otherwise. Farmers have planted more than three billion acres of GM crops. If this food was harmful, we’d have clear evidence by now.
 
It doesn’t surprise me that LeVaux would attack GM food with such desperate and ignorant passion. The world is full of people who refuse to understand the promise of agricultural biotechnology. They’ll never learn.
 
But The Atlantic? I expect better from this important and influential magazine.
 
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa.  Bill volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org)
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