Washington trade lawyer attacks Heritage trade proposal

John Gilliland penned a blistering attack on the Heritage Foundation's view of agricultural trade. Heritage claims U.S. farm policy is harmful and hurts trade liberalization. It asserts “…U.S. farmers would be better off if U.S. policy were unilaterally eliminated.” Gilliland notes that “Many countries subsidize farm production, but nearly all maintain a regime of tariff and non-tariff barriers.” He suggests “No other sector of the U.S. economy faces a greater variety of government-sanctioned competitive challenges.” He claims the U.S. already has low agriculture tariffs, and if we unilaterally disarm as Heritage suggests, U.S. farmers will be exposed to the distortions of trade created by foreign governments.He supports his argument with strong statistical data.First, he points out the U.S. has relatively low tariffs on many agricultural products. The average U.S. tariff rate on imported agriculture products is 4.8%. Canada, for example, has a much higher tariff on imported agriculture products of 16.7%. Mexico has an average applied rate of 15.6% while the European Union averages 10.7%.Gilliland claims “Average tariff rates among developing countries are also generally much higher.”