Ag Policy Blog

Gregg Doud, the chief U.S. agriculture trade negotiator, said last week he fears former Vice President Joe Biden would walk away from the China phase-one trade deal if he becomes president, Inside U.S. Trade reported.

Doud, speaking on Friday during a “virtual agriculture summit” run by the office of Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., referred to the Biden campaign in saying “I've seen where they've indicated that they don't want to keep it.”

Biden, who on Thursday became the Democratic Party's nominee for president, has repeatedly bashed the Trump administration's phase-one trade deal with China, going as far as calling it “worthless,” although he has not said he would end it, Inside U.S. Trade noted.

Doud, touting the amount of work it took to reach a deal with China on agriculture, said abandoning the phase-one trade deal “would be a bad thing” for U.S. farmers.

“We negotiated the dickens out of those,” he said to Smith, referring to the deal's agricultural provisions.

Inside U.S. Trade noted that, while Doud contended “the biggest piece of the phase-one agreement is actually agriculture,” Biden earlier this month minimized the impact of the deal on farmers, saying “Trump hasn't even managed to secure half of China's purchase commitments under the agreement. This is only the latest setback for a deal that has failed to deliver for the American people literally every step of the way.”

Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jhagstrom@nationaljournal.com

Follow him on Twitter @hagstromreport

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