Lankford Stands Up for OK Ag Community By Pushing Biden Admin on Promoting Free Trade

Press Release

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today brought the Oklahoma agricultural community's concerns President Biden's refusal to negotiate free trade agreements (FTAs) to Washington, DC, in a Senate Finance hearing to consider the nomination of Douglas McKalip to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In his Q&A Lankford pressed that Oklahoma agriculture producers want to see FTAs that are longer term and reduce dependence on nations like China. But Lankford says the Biden Administration continues to insist that they don't plan to push for any trade agreements.

Lankford continues to lead the Senate in pushing for trade agreements that benefit the US and ensure we work together with our allies while diminishing dependence on adversaries like China. Lankford was a leading voice in securing the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Lankford introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States President should lay the groundwork for a mutually advantageous future trade agreement between the US and the UK.

Excerpt

Lankford: …The President has instructed us: we're not going to do trade deals. Now the first year, we were all asking questions about: what are we going to do with the UK, what are we going to do in Asia, where are we expanding to? Every ag producer in my state--and I have a lot in my state of Oklahoma--all asked me the same question--well two questions, when's it going to rain next? That's the first one. The second one is always: what's the new trade agreement that we've got working? What new country? We're overly dependent on China for soy beans. We're overly dependent on certain countries. What new countries are we developing trade agreements with? And I hear from the Biden Administration, "We're not going to. We're kind of working on the edges of tweaking a few things.'

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