WASHINGTON DC – On September 30, the Prioritizing Offensive Agricultural Disputes and Enforcement Act (H. R. 5620) was again re-introduced by House Agriculture Committee member Rick Crawford (R-AR) with Louisiana Representatives Troy Carter (D-LA) and Clay Higgins (R-LA) as co-sponsors.
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 offensive agricultural dispute priorities. The bill specifically emphasizes the need for an agricultural dispute settlement case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against India’s trade distorting farm subsidies that continue to hurt U.S. farmers, which could include rice, wheat, pulses, peanuts, cotton, and other commodities.
In May 2024, the language establishing a joint task force between USDA and USTR was included in the Trade Title of the 2024 Farm Bill that passed out of the House Committee on Agriculture. Earlier this year, on February 26, 2025, U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Boozman (R-AR), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) re-introduced the legislation in the U.S. Senate.
USA Rice has supported each of these legislative initiatives to hold trading partners accountable to their commitments at the WTO. As rice is one of the most economic and culturally significant commodities around the world, government support often leads to over-subsidization in a number of key rice producing and exporting markets, forcing U.S. rice farmers to compete at a significant disadvantage. Since 2018, 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.
In its global competitiveness study,
Rice: Global Competitiveness and Impacts on Trade and the U.S. Industry, published this March, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that significant government intervention in the global rice industry continues to put U.S. rice producers at an unfair disadvantage (see
USA Rice Daily, March 10, 2025). USA Rice has repeatedly called on the U.S. government to address this trade distortion, particularly India’s egregious policies and practices as now the world’s largest rice producer and exporter, at the WTO through a dispute settlement case (see
USA Rice Daily, February 28, 2025).
“We, once again, applaud Representatives Crawford, Carter, and Higgins for elevating this need that is so critical to our industry’s success,” said Bobby Hanks, CEO of Supreme Rice in Crowley, Louisiana, and chair of the USA Rice International Trade Policy Committee. “We’re grateful for the Congressmen and women who get it – an offensive WTO dispute against India’s subsidies is long overdue. Absent from any meaningful bilateral policies to hold India accountable, 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.”
USA Rice CEO Peter Bachmann added, “USA Rice has supported the high unilateral tariffs on imports from India under President Trump’s leadership. Our industry continues to support and advocate for a U.S. policy approach that holds India, Thailand, and other bad actors accountable while supporting U.S. farmers both here at home and in key export markets around the world.”
The bill was first introduced in September 2023 in both the House and Senate 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), Garret Graves (R-LA), David Valado (R-CA), Michael Guest (R-MS), Barry Moore (R-AL), Mike Ezell (R-MS), John Duarte (R-CA), and Michaell Fischbach (R-MN) (see
USA Rice Daily, September 29, 2023).