Trade was a pinnacle piece of the Trump administration’s agenda. Between China and renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), trade was a highly debated topic during Trump’s four years in office. And thanks to the efforts of two agricultural leaders on Trump’s team, making the case for the importance of trade for farmers is what helped not only save NAFTA but possibly changed the course of history.
It was the last full week of April 2017, and Ray Starling, who served as Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture, Trade and Food Assistance during the Trump administration, had just received some important news. The information came from his boss Gary Cohen, President Trump’s director of the National Economic Council.
“We have it on good authority that the president is going to terminate NAFTA this Friday. The lawyers are working on the language, and you just need to get prepared for that,” remembers Starling.
Starling knew that terminating NAFTA could have very negative impacts on U.S. farmers. However, few people knew that such a decision from President Trump was imminent. Secretary of Agriculture, Sunny Perdue, had just been confirmed the prior day, and both Starling and Perdue knew they needed to get information to the president.
“I knew how to navigate the West Wing. I was going to take him to the Oval Office, and we were going to sneak in and talk the president out of terminating NAFTA. That was our plan,” says Starling.
Reince Preibus was the president’s chief of staff at the time. He stopped the pair and advised they could not just “stop by” to see the president without an appointment; however, the doors to the Oval Office soon opened and Starling and Perdue had their chance. The pair produced a color-coded map of the counties President Trump had carried in the 2016 presidential election, and Sec. Perdue shared the potential impact with the president.
“And he says, ‘If you terminate NAFTA without something else being in place, these are the people you’re going to be hurting,’ and he circled the Midwest and the reddest most central part of the country,” Starling recalls.
While Perdue continued talking with the president, Starling stepped outside the Oval Office to make quick calls to others in the West Wing who could come support their cause.
“By the time this meeting ended there had to be 15 to 20 people standing inside the Oval Office, and the president basically said, ‘I’m really glad you all came in here, we’re going to reconsider this decision,’” says Starling.
Starling shares the story in his recently released book, “Farmers versus Foodies.” He says few people know how close the country was to losing the important trade deal.
“By sneaking the secretary into the Oval Office, we had essentially changed the course of history in so far as it came to terminating that particular trade agreement that particular week,” says Starling.
While that meeting helped save NAFTA and set the course for the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), today, Starling is General Counsel for the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and speaks and consults with groups on topics related to agriculture.
You can listen to the full story on Farming the Country podcast with Andrew McCrea.
Related News:
Dairy Industry Remains Hopeful About NAFTA 2.0 Deal
Deadline Looms, but still no Movement on U.S.-Mexico Corn Trade Dispute, Grassley says
