The Yin and Yang of Agricultural Trade

It’s a fascinating, but uncertain, time in the agricultural markets. Global and US supplies of agricultural products are at or near record levels. At the same time, global demand for agricultural products continues to grow, pressured by both population and income growth. Markets work to distribute the products across the globe, and government policies can definitely shape that distribution. Myriad new trade agreements, trade disputes, and tariffs introduced over the last 15 months are reshaping global agricultural trade flows. Some of that reshaping has been beneficial to US producers, while some of it has been harmful. Trade policy does not exist in a vacuum—while a tariff may be targeted at one specific country, the tariff’s impact can (and often does) spread beyond the borders of the two countries involved, which is true of trade agreements as well. The impacts of the trade agreements are not limited to only those countries within the agreement.