Sam Brownback: “many of the lessons that we have learned regarding agricultural trade strategy, to change the subject to one that we…”

“many of the lessons that we have learned regarding agricultural trade strategy, to change the subject to one that we have been not necessary been talking recently, have taken a lot of time for us to learn. I used to work in this field, the trade field. I worked for the Secretary of Agriculture, and I have been around some of these negotiations. It took the United States forty years of multilateral negotiations, but in the Uruguay Round, we finally got it right: in order to achieve meaningful agricultural market liberalization, we must link progress in agricultural liberalization to progress in other sectors critical to our trading partners. Throughout the world, agriculture is one of the most highly protected industries. It is also represents one of the strongest comparative advantages that the United States enjoys. Additionally, the U.S. agriculture industry is a critical building block of this economy, employing 22.7 million people. That is about 17 percent of the total domestic labor force. Agriculture also contributed $997.7 billion dollars to our economy in 1996. In other words, 13.1 percent of our country's GDP is agriculture-based. Furthermore, a large portion of what we produce in the U.S.--roughly 40 percent--is consumed overseas.”