Editor's Note: This article is co-authored by GFN members: Dr. Gilbert arap Bor: Kapsaret, Eldoret, Kenya; Gabriel Carballal: Tacaurembo, Uruguay; Jack Froese: Winkler, Manitoba, Canada; Jane Smith: Oamaru, Otago, New Zealand; Paul Temple: Driffield, E Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
The world needs a free-trade champion.
We’re used to the United States providing global trade leadership, working so hard and so long to expand and improve the flow of goods and services across borders. The amazing result today is a global economic system that benefits ordinary consumers everywhere by increasing access to food and products as well as maintaining or even lowering prices.
Today, the future of global trade is at risk in a U.S. election that features Presidential and Congressional candidates who at best ignore (free) trade and at worst vilify it.
Both Democrats and Republicans “are increasingly embracing tariffs as an essential tool,” reported the New York Times in August. “It has been a sharp reversal from previous decades, when most politicians fought to lower tariffs rather than raise them.”
In this troubled moment, we come to our American friends with a simple message: Don’t give up on free trade.
Our message to Americans: We’re not your fellow patriots. We’re farmers from everywhere else: Kenya, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, and South America.
We are thus appropriately reluctant to speak about U.S. politics. Nations are sovereign and their domestic affairs are their own business. It’s good for citizens to be curious about people in other countries, including their methods of government—but foreigners should not seek to interfere in democratic elections, nor should they give the appearance of trying to do it.
So, we’re not here to tell Americans how to vote. We don’t endorse any candidates, nor do we take partisan sides.
But we have an urgent plea: We’re grateful for what your country has done, and we still need that leadership now.
The United States is a force for good in the world. Its people have sacrificed blood and treasure to fight tyranny and promote prosperity. This is not to say that we’ve always agreed with every choice U.S. officials have ever made—and we’re pretty sure the same could be said for most American voters.
We believe that the United States has brought order to the chaos of international affairs. The world is a better place with Americans in it.
Americans also have contributed to agricultural research and development behind the Green Revolution and other advances in agricultural technology. These accomplishments have made it possible for farmers to feed a planet of 8 billion people—something that seemed almost unimaginable just a generation or two ago.
And by promoting global trade, Americans have led the way on creating opportunities for people in different nations to engage in commercial activity for mutual benefit.
Americans haven’t done this alone. They have had friends and allies in other lands who also understand the advantages of free trade and have struggled to promote it. Many of us have joined them as willing partners in this march of progress.
Farmers and producers are at the center of this global success story. Many of our best customers live in countries we’ll never visit. We depend on the international trade that lets Belgians eat bananas from Colombia, Filipinos sip milk from New Zealand, Algerians bake pastries from Canadian durum wheat, British, Irish and Turkish consumers savor Kenya’s tea and coffee —and allows Americans to devour avocados from Mexico, munch on shrimp from India, and taste cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast.
The bottom line is that our world enjoys more food security today than at any other point in history—and U.S. leadership on trade and technology has been indispensable in providing abundance and choice.
We cannot afford to take any of it for granted. As President Ronald Reagan warned in the 1980s: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
In the 2020s, we face huge threats: war, political disruption, unruly migration, soaring levels of government debt, and climate change. If we’re going to overcome these challenges, we need an economic system that allows us to unite across borders and strive for economic gain.
That economic system is based on free trade: We need to keep it alive.
For trade to thrive, the United States must maintain its traditional role as a leader whose elected officials believe that free trade has a special power to uplift everyone, from the farmers who grow food and the manufacturers who make things to the customers who rely on them.
The world needs a free-trade champion—and that means it needs American leadership who support trade and lead by example.
