By Rep. Adrian Smith
Under the Biden-Harris administration, inflation triggered by anti-growth policies, lackluster engagement on trade, and bloated federal spending has hit Nebraska households hard—costing the average household in our state $32,110 more since January 2021. Rising input costs also continue to severely impact the agriculture and manufacturing industries. Data published this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the annual rate of inflation for wholesale products again increased in October.
To confront these challenges, we must get back to the basics of sound economic policy and reinvigorate the effort to advance a United States trade policy which unleashes the powerhouse of American innovation and promotes prosperity for the American people. Unfortunately, when it comes to international market access for our products abroad and effective protections of our intellectual property, the United States is not better off than it was four years ago. While the current administration has neglected to negotiate new enforceable, rules-based trade agreements on behalf of our farmers and ranchers and failed to provide leadership on impactful issues such as digital trade, our competitors such as China and Brazil have aggressively sought to strengthen their own positions.
With our agriculture trade deficit at an all-time high and climbing, maximizing the competitiveness of our tax and trade policy is crucial to leveling the playing field and standing up for American industry. In a rapidly changing global marketplace, we cannot afford to sit back and allow hard-working Americans to get left behind.
Meaningful engagement which increases economic security and lowers barriers to robust trade cooperation begins with a commitment to drive a hard bargain on behalf of the American people. Conversations created by an aggressive approach to trade policy during President Trump’s first term helped produce the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a bipartisan triumph which strengthened relations with our closest trading partners and has provided a necessary mechanism to address trade disputes such as Mexico’s unscientific ban on American-grown corn. To fulfill its constitutional duty on trade policy, Congress must have a partner in the White House willing to actively advance substantive trade policy, not the empty dialogues of the Biden-Harris White House.
Economic growth and stability are hard-won and not easily maintained. As we carefully consider trade proposals to improve the United States’ competitiveness in domestic agriculture and manufacturing, one of the most important trade-related actions Congress can take is to pass legislation I have introduced to reauthorize and modernize the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and Miscellaneous Tariffs Bill (MTB) trade programs, which would provide strategic and targeted tariff relief. Historically bipartisan, GSP and MTB are supposed to help American industry keep pace with international competition, protect American jobs, and reduce our trade deficit by selectively suspending import tariffs to increase access to necessary manufacturing inputs which are not sold or available in the U.S.
Unfortunately, authorization for both of these important programs is currently lapsed leaving thousands of businesses, both large and small, without these important benefits. In 2023, Nebraska exported $6.8 billion in manufactured products. Reducing the cost of imported inputs can enhance our productivity, enabling our businesses to increase that number and sell more products here and around the world.
With a commitment to active engagement on trade policy, the future of American agriculture and American productivity in every industry can move into the future, instead of getting left in the past. In my work as Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee chairman and co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Agricultural Trade Caucus, I will never stop fighting to enhance American competitiveness for the families and small businesses which make up the backbone of our economy.