Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1094578
6 Sugar Producer APRIL 2019 FROM THE ASGA By Luther Markwart | EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Wading Through Sugar industry does the tough work of ensuring favorable trade Management by crisis—this is the standard way Washington works, and it is a complicated and messy process to navigate. It seems that every major issue is embroiled in a partisan brawl. We witnessed that last year in the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, and now we will see it in the negotiation and passage of trade agreements in 2019. Perhaps the biggest and most immediate challenge to American agriculture is the short-term damage incurred as a result of negotiating strategies to leverage better long-term trade agreements. The disruption and damage of well-established agricultural markets and reliable supply chains is both disheartening and economically punishing to farmers who are the ultimate pawns on the negotiating chessboard and whose income and equity is being put at risk. When and where does this all end? Let's take a look. Trade agreements negotiated in the past were often for geopolitical purposes. Strong economic ties with allies (for military sites), neighbors (migration concerns) or essential commodities (oil) were critical, even if we run trade deficits with them. The reason for NAFTA and CAFTA trade agreements was to provide good jobs in those countries for political and economic stability to avoid mass migration to our southern border, knowing full well it would take jobs from the Rust Belt and Midwest regions. Certainly, it is a problem that remains today, but imagine the immigration problems if Venezuela—on the verge of political and economic collapse—were on our southern border. You get the picture. China's plentiful labor, low wages and minimal regulations made it a magnet for manufacturing cheap goods for the U.S. consumer market, but led to theft of American intellectual property, forced technology transfers, cyber theft and non-tariff barriers, and fueling a massive trade deficit with the U.S. that is unsustainable. Yet China is critically important to solving the continued military threat from North Korea. A very thin needle to thread. Trade negotiations between nations are notorious for being slow. The President has little