How Is Foreign Trade Policy Impacting American Farmers?

Sometimes the export demand for US crops is effected by more than just simple supply and demand economics. USDA Outlook Chairman, Mark Jekanowski, said sometimes policy decisions made by foreign governments can change things. Two examples: first, the Chinese policies on how much of what US products it will but to fulfill the phase one trade agreement.

"Certainly, lately China has been buying a lot more from us," Jekanowski said. "Buying a lot of soybeans, buying a lot of other commodities as well."

He noted other current examples of markets being changed by government policies include some nations either talking about or even actually imposing restrictions on exports of their own farm commodities.

"The one place where we’ve seen some of these restrictions actually being imposed are in rice, Vietnam has imposed some export restrictions Cambodia, Burma, those kinds of policies have real implications for global prices." Jekanowski continued.

And he said that can change the prospects for U.S. products. USDA's new World Ag Supply and Demand (WASDE) report will be released Tuesday at 9 a.m. Pacific.

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