Unfriendly Trade Policy

I copied this snippet from the Kansas City Star. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/15060639.htm.

Farm and labor leaders at a summit in Washington, D.C., last week called current U.S. trade policy detrimental to U.S. agriculture.

In a trade summit sponsored by the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Business and Industry Council, farm and labor industry leaders agreed that the World Trade Organization’s trade policy has created an uneven playing field for the U.S. and caused a record trade deficit. The current trade agenda has put American farms, businesses and workers in jeopardy by giving a competitive advantage to foreign producers, they said.

“Across the board, in farming, technology and manufacturing, American jobs are being outsourced,” said Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union.

The union maintains that currency manipulation, labor standards and environmental health and safety standards must be equal worldwide for domestic producers to compete fairly on the global market.