Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the agreements reached at World Trade Organization talks over the weekend present an historic opportunity for American farmers. Grassley, a republican, says the U.S. locked in some major trade negotiating objectives for agriculture. Grassley says “What’s significant for Iowa and our basic industry of agriculture is that we’ve gotten the European community to finally agree to do away with export subsidies. Now they have export subsidies that are about 15-times ours.” He says the elimination of those subsidies is key, calling them the most “trade distorting” of all subsidies.He said Europe did away with about 15-dollars of export subsidies to only one-dollar of U.S. export subsides, calling it a win-win for farmers. Grassley says it’ll level the playing field for American farmers and for American workers so their products can be exported. Grassley says the W-T-O agreements are part of a framework of negotiation and says “there is still a long way to go before the (talks are) deemed a success for U.S. agriculture.”
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