USW Director of Policy Reflects on Global Trade

World trade week begins May 14, providing an opportunity to recognize the importance of trade and how it affects each of our lives. For producers, consumers, exporters and importers, trade is not a one-way street. It requires the exchange of goods and services for a win-win partnership.

How often have you stopped to think about trade? For most of you, I expect many of the products you eat, wear and use every day were not made in your home country.

But trade is much more than just buying and selling these final products. Global supply chains take many inputs, perhaps some from your country and others not, to put together a finished product. Open trade policies allow end product manufacturers to benefit from materials and expertise located around the world.  

For agriculture, trade is especially significant. The World Trade Organization (WTO) estimated world agriculture trade at $1.4 trillion in 2010, representing roughly 10 percent of global goods traded that year. This is of particular important to wheat, as roughly 20 percent of global production is exported each year.

The United States produces reliably abundant wheat crops virtually every year. That wheat is in demand around the world, imported, processed into flour and then either consumed locally or exported as a finished product. U.S. wheat might also be exported to a country for use in aquaculture or feed rations, which, in turn, are used for seafood or meat products, which may be sold to yet another country. Open trade policies allow goods, like wheat, to move as a raw material or as a value-added food product to where in the world it is in demand.  

There is no doubt that trade provides benefits for you, me, farmers, consumers, exporters and importers around the world, by providing markets for our products as well as purchasing options at competitive prices. Take a moment during this next week to think about the impact of trade and share the story with others.