Jim Costa, D-Calif., the top democrat on the House Agriculture subcommittee on livestock and trade, called the Biden administration’s trade policy a “work in progress.” While speaking earlier in December on a Farmers for Free Trade roundtable, long-time supporter of trade and dairy farmer Costa lamented the stalled trade approach for U.S. agriculture, particularly the departure from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Costa explains the Biden administration is still trying to determine what the White House, State Department and U.S. Trade Ambassador office will pursue from the previous administration and what they want to establish as part of this administration on foreign trade policy. Add in that the new administration didn’t get their trade ambassador confirmed until June, and Elaine Trevino, the chief agricultural negotiator nominee, is yet to be confirmed.

Over the last 10 years, the initiatives established during the George W. Bush administration and continued under the Obama era to pursue a trading bloc with the 13 countries TPP was a good strategy to deal with the challenges China brings.

“China is an adversary,” Costa says, yet they’re not only an adversary but also a very important customer and market for many U.S. agricultural goods.  

“As western democracy, we have the ability to write the rules. But we know our competitors don’t follow the rules,” he says of China and India. Now we’ve got a situation with Europe and the United Kingdom where they want to establish their own trading relationships that also are not how we agree, including geographic indicators and requirements on production practices.

Costa says the Biden administration, including USTR Ambassador Katherine Tia, have been playing catch up since coming on board to get our trade competitors in European and Asia to realize the intersection with other foreign policy objectives.

The administration’s trade policy agenda, as articulated by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, remains squarely focused on enforcing existing trade agreements, most notably the recently ratified U.S. -Mexico- Canada Agreement and the China Phase One agreement. New trade agreement negotiations with the United Kingdom and Kenya, initiated by the prior administration, have not been revived. Further, reconsideration of the prior administration’s withdrawal from TPP, now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, has been rejected in favor of pursuit of a still undefined Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

“Obviously, we need greater clarity with what priorities are for the administration’s policy and where ag fits in and how to deal with allies and adversaries,” Costa says.  

Costa adds he’s invited Tai to testify before the House Agriculture Committee and senses sometime at the start of the year she will do that.

“I think it is critical that we try to develop some not only consensus but continuity,” Costa says.

As the calendar turns to a new year, many in agriculture hope that the focus on enforcing trade deals will also include a strategy that includes more than just enforcement.