UNITED STATES: Fast Track agreements for international trade destructive, unpopular, with ranchers and more.

National Farmers Union members said on May 5 that there is no acceptable version of Trade Promotion Authority or “Fast Track,” and an entirely new mechanism for authorizing trade negotiations and agreements is needed to return control and oversight of future international trade agreements to Congress.

“Recent trade agreements such as NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] and CAFTA [Central American Free Trade Agreement], which have been negotiated under Fast Track, have been destructive and intensely unpopular with farmers, ranchers, and working families,” said NFU President Tom Buis. “These agreements are the reason we have an $800 billion trade deficit.”

The farm organization membership also called upon the Administration and U.S. trade negotiators to abandon efforts to conclude the Doha Round agreement at the WTO. Delegates said the Doha agreement would devastate American agriculture and accelerate the race to the bottom for commodity prices.

“U.S. trade negotiators have been intent on trading away the interests of America’s family farmers and ranchers in the current Doha Round,” Buis said. “We’re being forced to compete with countries that do not have to meet our high labor, environmental and health standards.”

NFU said the Doha Round would urge that future trade agreements not be limited to regulating domestic support levels, export subsidies and market access.