Agriculture is essential to the prosperity of North Carolina, particularly its rural communities. Exports make up about one-third of the state's $9.6 billion in annual farm cash receipts.
Unfortunately, the nation's ability to trade openly in the world marketplace is in jeopardy. There are more than 600 bilateral and regional trade agreements in place or under negotiation worldwide. Sadly, the U.S. has a share in fewer than 25 of these trade deals.
Of particular concern are free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama that have been stalled in Congress for years. Now, as the administration and Congress continue to debate their passage, we are losing nearly $3 billion per year in agriculture exports.
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Comments
Larry
While we certainly would like to see our farmers and the illegal workers they hire succeed, one would have to be a complete idiot to ignore the plight of American workers since this whole free-trade regime started in the mid-1990s. We have exported our manufactoring jobs in mass and replaced them with....well at 9-10% unemployment we have not replaced them at all. Walmart is doing well as are many of the corporate retail folks. Most American capital from any tax breaks are being invested heavily in the emerging markets...so why not add Brazil, Korea, Argintina, Indonesia to the list...afterall we do not need any financial investment in America....lets just render trickle down or supply side even less effective in stimulating the domestic economy as banks and corporations will have even more underpaid labor overseas to exploit at the cost of American jobs....but hey, we can sell more chickens and hogs while keeping the illegal immigrants here gainfully employed.
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