Negotiate with China for today and tomorrow

It has now been nearly two months since the first media report suggesting we were on the brink of a “trade war” with China. At that time I was very critical of even ag media because most publications just reported what was easy to say; that President Donald Trump was ready to bring on a trade war with China.

As I mentioned at the time, that rhetoric is not the truth of the matter in any way, shape or form. The truth is that we have been giving away the farm for years and if someone didn’t put a foot down now, pretty soon it would be too late.

Below is a partial report from the office of the United State Trade Representative within the White House and one that I suggest will be completely foreign to far too many people. In August 2017 the Trump administration suggested that:

“China appears to be breaking WTO rules by denying foreign patent holders, including U.S. companies, basic patent rights to stop a Chinese entity from using the technology after a licensing contract ends. China also appears to be breaking WTO rules by imposing mandatory adverse contract terms that discriminate against and are less favorable for imported foreign technology.

These Chinese policies hurt innovators in the United States and worldwide by interfering with the ability of foreign technology holders to set market-based terms in licensing and other technology-related contracts.

Following a thorough analysis of available evidence, USTR, with the assistance of the interagency Section 301 committee, prepared findings showing that the acts, policies, and practices of the Chinese government related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce.

China uses joint venture requirements, foreign investment restrictions, and administrative review and licensing processes to force or pressure technology transfers from American companies.

China uses discriminatory licensing processes to transfer technologies from U.S. companies to Chinese companies.

China directs and facilitates investments and acquisitions, which generate large-scale technology transfer.

China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into U.S. computer networks to gain access to valuable business information.

An interagency team of subject matter experts and economists estimates that China’s policies result in harm to the U.S. economy of at least $50 billion per year.”

So it should be clear to anyone who can look at the facts that it is costing us money to do business with China as we have been and if we don’t change practices, they will simply own us.

This brings up another issue that brought to mind my trips to Australia. The last time I went to western Australia, all questions seem to all be geared around “How many farms are the Chinese buying in the U.S.?” At the time, the Australian parliament had just decided to step in and regulate how much property China could acquire because it was growing out of hand. Should it be any different here?

I am honestly not well versed on all of the Chinese holdings in the U.S. farm sector but I do know for fact that they own a third of all U.S. pork production. That is a figure that also seems to get lost in this equation.

For those of us at the farm/ranch level, we can relate to ownership of property and understand the risks associated when that is out of balance. I am not sure we know exactly how to appreciate the loss of intellectual property although I am confident that in 2018 that may be more important than the loss of land itself.

At the end of the day I am sure that we have been selling out “stuff” to China because they have been a good customer. I am also positive that we have not been properly negotiating what it is we are selling to them. It was high time to put our foot down and remind them that we have products they need, so they need to pay us properly, protect our producers and our technology or there is no deal. It seems like our agricultural commodity leadership thinks that our only potential market is China and without them as a customer we are done. That is simply not true.

We now have a full time ag negotiator in the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Let’s allow him to finally negotiate better deals for farmers and ranchers; not only for today but for tomorrow as well.

Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].