Steve Watkins: “Fact: 96 percent of the consumers live outside the United States. Are we fearful of competing for that market? I want to…”

“Fact: 96 percent of the consumers live outside the United States. Are we fearful of competing for that market? I want to make sure we do everything we can for our children and for our citizens to penetrate those markets by selling United States products and agriculture commodities. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. If we are fearful of entering those markets, we are surely to shrink. We are surely to sell the future of our children down the drain, and we will become a second-class economy. One year from this December, just 15 months from now the World Trade Organization will meet to negotiate international agriculture trade agreements. Are we going to send our negotiators there with one arm or maybe both arms tied behind us? I fear the fact we are not going to give or arm our negotiators with the opportunity to enter trade agreements to sell agriculture commodities at a time when we are hurting worse on the American farm than any time since the Great Depression. That is the reason why in this bill, let there be no mistake, I have placed the toughest language to assist in our agriculture negotiations that we have ever had. In fact, we establish in this bill a chief negotiator for agriculture with ambassador status, because I want someone around the table, whether it is in Geneva or wherever, negotiating for the farmers and ranchers of this country.”