Trade Flows Upended As Shipments From Ukrainian Ports 'All But Ceased'
Yaroslav Trofimov reported on the front page of Monday’s Wall Street Journal that, “Russian and Ukrainian officials prepared to meet for the first talks since Moscow began its invasion four days ago, as Ukraine’s defenders held on to the capital, Kyiv, and pushed back Russian troops in urban combat in its second-largest city, Kharkiv.
“In a sign of growing tensions with the West over Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s nuclear-deterrence forces to be put on alert.
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Cargill Says Ship It Chartered Was Hit While in Ukraine’s Waters
A ship chartered by Cargill Inc. was hit while sailing in Ukrainian waters in the Black Sea and is currently sailing south to Romanian waters to receive assistance, the U.S. agricultural trading giant said.
“The vessel and all crew are safe and accounted for,” Cargill said Thursday in a statement. The vessel was empty when the incident occurred, the company said.
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US Ports To Get $450M To Speed Flow Of Goods, Lower Prices
Clogged U.S. ports are being given access to nearly $450 million in federal money from President Joe Biden's infrastructure law as part of the administration's recent stepped-up efforts aiming to ease supply chain congestion and lower prices for American consumers.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday announced the availability of a first batch of competitive grants for ports that will be double last year's amount annually for five years. The grants are aimed specifically at reducing bottlenecks that have slowed the flow of goods to store shelves and pushed up costs.
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India Yellow Pine Log Inbound Trade Mission to LA, GA & MD
Logs dominate Indian imports, but the share of log imports has come down from 83 percent in 2007 to 48 percent in 2018. A favorable tariff structure has supported log imports, but the poor/inadequate level of processing by domestic sawmills has prompted the Indian trade to import higher volumes of lumber versus logs in recent years.
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Agriculture Organizations Continue To Push Congress For Ocean Shipping Reforms
Last week, USA Rice joined more than 100 agriculture organizations in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging action on ocean shipping reform legislation for agriculture.
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USDA Announces Partnership to Ease Port Congestion and Restore Disrupted Shipping Services to U.S. Grown Agricultural Commodities
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced plans to increase capacity at the Port of Oakland in Oakland, California and improve service for shippers of U.S. grown agricultural commodities.
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Progress Made in Efforts to Deepen Mississippi River
A dredging project supported through checkoff investments and a state-federal cost-share is making progress toward expanding marketing opportunities for U.S. soybean farmers.
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Biden Administration Scores First USMCA Trade Dispute Victory Over Dairy, Canada Also Claims Victory
Dairy tariff-rate quotas (TRQ) have been a point of contention since the United States reached an agreement with Canada over the dairy portion of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). And just over a year and a half since the new agreement went into effect, the United States won its first challenge over dairy.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced Tuesday that the United States prevailed in its first dispute settlement panel proceeding brought under USCMA. The panel concluded Canada is breaching its USMCA commitments by “reserving most of the in-quota quantity in its dairy tariff-rate quotas for the exclusive use of Canadian processors.”
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'Containergeddon' Cost CA Growers $2.1B In Exports
Between wildfires, drought, a trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic, the last few years have been hard on California farmers. But recent research by agricultural economists suggests that economic losses to California agriculture from recent supply chain disruptions may have an even greater economic impact.
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GAO Finds Trump Trade Payments Unfair
In the wake of retaliatory tariffs targeted at U.S. agricultural goods, USDA paid out a total of $23 billion to farmers under the 2019 and 2019 Market Facilitation Program. In further evaluating the program, a Government Accountability Office report reveals that USDA picked winners and losers in how it allocated trade damage payments to farmers.
GAO estimated that, for example, total 2019 MFP payments to corn producers were approximately $3 billion more than USDA’s estimate of trade damage to corn, while payments to soybeans, sorghum and cotton producers were lower than their estimated trade damages.
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America Falling Behind Due To Current Trade Policy
The U.S. is lagging behind competitors in reducing global trade barriers and the Biden administration’s trade policy does not look to alter that trajectory, according to a new analysis from the Corn Refiners Association and unveiled during a recent roundtable virtual discussion hosted by the Farmers for Free Trade. The findings, which track trade agreement since 2010, show that rival trading nations have outpaced the U.S. in cutting bilateral and multilateral trade arrangements.
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Corps Is Taking the Deep Route
The Army Corps of Engineers 2020 Work Plan included funding for infrastructure projects in Louisiana, including $85 million to deepen the Mississippi River to 50'.
The launch of the project followed the July 31, 2020, signing of an agreement between the Corps and the state of Louisiana. The final 256 miles of the Lower Mississippi between the Gulf of Mexico and Baton Rouge, La., is in the process of being deepened to 50'. In fact, dredging the ship channel to 50' from the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of South Louisiana in Reserve, La. (between New Orleans and Baton Rouge) is finished.
Between Baton Rouge and the Gulf of Mexico is a stretch of river where more than 50% of U.S. corn and soybeans are shipped to U.S. export markets, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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Farm Bureau Pushes for Stronger Trade with Global Partners
The American Farm Bureau Federation joined eight other organizations in reaching out to United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai in advance of the upcoming 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), which will focus on the future work of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to call for needed reforms.
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China's Coarse Grain Imports For 2020/21 Double Previous Record
Earlier this week, in its Grain: Worlds Market and Trade report, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) stated that, “China coarse grain imports for 2020/21 are now complete.
Based on China Customs’ data, combined imports of corn, sorghum, and barley from the world totaled 50.2 million tons, doubling the previous record set in 2014/15.
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EU Deal On Steel Tariffs Offers Relief To Ag
Over the weekend, the United States and European Union agreed to suspend the tariffs on steel and aluminum and to start the work of facilitating negotiations with like-minded countries to reduce steel and aluminum overcapacity and carbon intensity. The agreement also reopens the door for U.S. agriculture exports impacted by retaliatory tariffs. But the ag equipment sector remains challenged.
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