I’m starting to get the feeling that Teddy Roosevelt has resurrected himself and is leading another charge on Capitol Hill to do more trust busting. There has been a lot of hype over mergers and acquisitions recently. Last week several Democratic congressmen floated a bill to pause agribusiness mergers and acquisitions with companies that have $160 million or more in gross sales, which would be the size of a 50,000-head feedlot.
The Food and Agribusiness Mergers Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2019 (FAMMARA—a good acronym) is supported by 219 organizations, of which you’ve only heard of maybe five of them, and they are the usual five groups that create 98 percent of the proposed legislative stuff thrown at lawmakers each year: National Farmers Union; R-CALF USA; OCM; Green Peace; Food and Water Watch, etc. The bill was brought forth by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), presidential hopeful, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). More than likely this bill will never see the light of day, as happened in 2018. Not sure why I’m telling you this other than the fact that everything in this country is apparently unfair.
If these guys were picking on business as a whole and not just singling out agribusiness and the food industry, I might feel differently. And it’s always the same old groups of people pushing these bad ideas. However, some folks still want to see the government come in and control markets, not necessarily develop markets. Seems like every market the government is involved in is a mess, like health insurance.
In this country we have a free market economy. It has served us well, though perhaps not everyone at the same time, yet everyone has the right to swing at the piсata. If you expend the effort you can make a good living in the U.S., which is why everyone wants to come here. It’s one of the best places on Earth to do business.
However, we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about a socialist economy recently, Green New Deal and such. I can’t figure out why, but perhaps it’s because I’m becoming an old guy. A quick history lesson on socialism should convince anyone it’s not a good place to go.
We have D-Day coming up, June 6, and Memorial Day, this past weekend. We must remember all those men in World War II who gave up their lives to protect our freedom, democracy and free market economy. Falling into the socialist trap of apathy would be an insult to those men and women who died for our freedom.
In order to lift everyone out of poverty we need a market-driven economy. We must work at free and fair trade. We need to negotiate free- and fair-trade agreements with other countries if we want to sell products and services and do well. Not every country and their cultures play by the same rules and we must realize that and help them see that.
For instance, we’re not going to budge China on human rights in a trade deal. Society must do that for themselves and democracy is the best way to get there. I think we’re getting really close in Venezuela and perhaps Cuba.
We’re making progress in the free and fair-trade arena. Japan just lifted the ban on beef from over 30-month-old cattle. I’m not sure what that will do to beef markets since the Japanese are not big ground beef eaters, but it’s got to help. The main thing is that Japan responded to the sound science that the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) endorsed, which will set a new global standard. The next thing we need to get done with Japan is reduce tariffs on beef. They are one of our best export markets and we still have a 38.5 percent tariff on fresh beef where TPP countries just started ratcheting down tariffs.
The Trump administrations just lifted the tariffs on steel and aluminum for Canada and Mexico, and they have responded and lifted their tariffs on ag products. I see the pork industry gaining the most from this truce. But Congress still must ratify the USMCA agreement and with all the political BS going on in Washington it might be a while before that gets done. Someone is going to want to make adjustments on some non-business issue.
China is next and the most challenging. I feel they need us more than we need them at this point. They need lots of pork and soon. There will be a lot of hungry Chinese and that’s not good for a communist government. They can hide it for a little while but not for ever. —PETE CROW
