Ex-Farm Bureau leader: NAFTA negativity is fake news

Claims that the North American Free Trade Agreement has been bad for the United States and U.S. agriculture are simply not true, former American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman said.

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Former American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman dismisses the idea that the North American Free Trade Agreement has been bad for the United States. | AFBF
Former American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman dismisses the idea that the North American Free Trade Agreement has been bad for the United States. | AFBF

Claims that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been bad for the United States and U.S. agriculture are simply not true, former American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman said.

Stallman, who served at the helm of AFBF from 2000 to 2016 and is currently a board member for the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, spoke mostly in support of the trade agreement during the Farm Foundation Forum: The Future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, held on April 26.

The agreement, enforced in 1994, “has been very successful for the country and particularly for ag,” said Stallman, also a Texas cattle and rice producer.

“It really reshaped relations in North America between the North American countries,” he said, noting that the agreement created an integrated continental economy that has helped not only the U.S., but also Canada and Mexico.

Trilateral trade between the three countries has grown 245 percent since the agreement was adopted, he added.

Those statistics show that the harsh criticism NAFTA has received from some, Stallman said, is unfounded and fits under a description used commonly by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The statements in the news that NAFTA has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to this country, the worst trade agreement, that’s fake news. … I think that’s the current term for that kind of stuff. It’s just not accurate,” he said.

“Now you can argue about different sectors, you can argue about regional impacts, or industry impacts, or particular commodity impacts, but at the end of the day, NAFTA has been good for North America.”

A question of national sovereignty

Stallman said one case made by NAFTA opponents is that with the agreement, participating nations lose their sovereignty.

“Every country is nationally sovereign. There’s a lot of prattle in the blogosphere about somehow NAFTA causes us to lose our national sovereignty. Nonsense. Trade agreements are about countries sitting down together and negotiating an agreement,” said Stallman.

Involved countries then reach an agreement and honor it, but still are free to make their own decisions as a country.

Comparative advantages and innovation

In most cases, people tend to think their domestic products are superior to those that are imported from other countries. However, Stallman said that isn’t necessarily the case.

He said years ago, the U.S. automobile industry was stagnating, but as trade opened up, U.S. automakers had to compete with more innovative companies and as a result, had to continue to improve the vehicles produced domestically. Trade deals prompt those kind of innovations, he said.

Stallman added that the consumers aren’t as patriotic as they are sometimes made out to be. He said he knows that through AFBF’s involvement with the country of origin labeling (COOL) issue. When filling out a survey form, U.S. consumers may say they will choose the U.S. product over the imported product, but it may be a different story at the grocery store. If quality is the same and the price of an imported product is lower than the price of the domestic product, most will buy the lower-priced item.

Improvements to NAFTA can be made

While Stallman mostly spoke of how NAFTA has been good for U.S. agriculture, he said it deserves to be revisited.

“This is a 23-year-old agreement,” Stallman said. “It’s time to take another look at it and review it.”

Among concerns about NAFTA are:

  • Non-tariff trade barriers, including sanitary and phytosanitary barriers
  • Remaining gaps in export access
  • Customs and trade facilitation
  • Intellectual property rights
  • Dispute settlement

Several agricultural organizations have stated an eagerness to work with Trump as his administration reviews the NAFTA agreement. Stallman's advice is that all industries need to step up and talk to government officials, explaining what they believe needs to happen. He doesn’t think full-scale renegotiations are needed, but rather representatives from the three countries negotiating some of NAFTA’s “rough points,” being careful not to “go backwards.”

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