WASHINGTON, DC – On Wednesday February 26, the Prioritizing Offensive Agricultural Disputes and Enforcement Act was re-introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Boozman (R-AR), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). The bill establishes a joint task force on agricultural trade enforcement between the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and signals more engagement with Congress and the private sector on the development of agricultural dispute priorities.
The bill also emphasizes the need for an agricultural dispute settlement case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against India’s trade distorting farm subsidies, which could include rice, wheat, pulses, peanuts, cotton, and other commodities.
The bill was first introduced in September 2023 in both the House and Senate (see
USA Rice Daily, September 29, 2023) by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Boozman (R-AR), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS); and in the House by Representatives Rick Crawford (R-AR), Mark Alford (R-MO), Troy Carter (D-LA), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Trent Kelly (R-MS), Julia Letlow (R-LA), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Tracey Mann (R-KS), Austin Scott (R-GA), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), David Rouzer (R-NC), Jim Costa (D-CA), Bruce Westerman (R-AR), Brad Finstad (R-MN), Garrett Graves (R-LA), David Valado (R-CA), Michael Guest (R-MS), Barry Moore (R-AL), Mike Ezell (R-MS), John Duarte (R-CA), Michaell Fischbach (R-MN).
Rice is one of the most politically protected commodities around the world. Government manipulation leads to over-subsidization in a number of key rice producing and exporting markets and forces U.S. rice farmers to compete at a significant disadvantage. Since 2023, USTR and USDA have calculated India’s real levels of support for rice to be between 78 percent and peaking at 93 percent over the last decade, compared to its WTO-legal limit of 10 percent. USA Rice has repeatedly called on the U.S. government to address this trade distortion, particularly India’s egregious policies and practices as the world’s largest rice exporter, at the WTO through a dispute settlement case.
“Once again we applaud Senators Cassidy, Boozman, Hyde-Smith, Ernst, and Tuberville for being leading voices in Congress on this critical issue, not only for the U.S. rice industry, but for all U.S. agriculture being treated unfairly in our global markets,” said Bobby Hanks, CEO of Supreme Rice in Crowley, Louisiana, and chair of the USA Rice International Trade Policy Committee. “A WTO dispute against India’s subsidies is long overdue. Absent from any meaningful bilateral policy negotiations with India in the last decade, a WTO dispute would drive the long-term policy changes needed in India that would help make U.S. rice farmers, and farmers all around the world, more competitive.”
Additionally, the language establishing a joint task force between USDA and USTR was included in the Trade Title of the 2024 Farm Bill passed out of the House Committee on Agriculture in May 2024. USA Rice will continue to push for its inclusion in the new Farm Bill as Congress continues its work this year.