VOA常速英语:美国贸易环境不确定，农民心里不踏实

It’s been a tough stretch for Illinois farmer Wendell Shauman.Costs for everything from fertilizer to seed have increased, but the price for his crops have (has) not.

During the last four years, Shauman’s income has dropped,and he was hoping that erasing the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba would give his bottom line a little boost.

“Cuba’s a logical market, something that’s 90 miles away should be your market.Politics has had that thing tied up, since probably I was in high school.”

Politics will keep it tied up, for now,as President Donald Trump seeks to reverse former President Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with the Caribbean island nation.

“Walking away from a Cuba market is just nonsense too.It’s a market that is in our backdoor, you want to take advantage of that.”

Shauman voted for Trump and while he understands how trade agreements can affect manufacturing jobs,he is at odds with some of the administration’s trade policies.“Never walk away from a trade deal, never walk away from a market.”

“I think the positions of the current administration on trade have been a little bit of a yo-yo for most farmers.”Tamara Nelsen is the Senior Director of Commodities for the Illinois Farm Bureau.“Farmers don’t like to be told where they can sell food,and so they have long been opponents to the embargo, to any embargo that includes food products.They believe that the best way to change a government in a foreign country is to engage with them, not to take away their food.”

The Illinois Farm Bureau is one of a number of organizations criticalof the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back trade with Cuba, but Nelsen admits it is a small market.

“It’s maybe 25, 30 million dollars a year, at best for a state like Illinois depending on what we are exporting in a given year.”

But trade in the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is a much bigger concern.“Trade with Canada and Mexico, our agricultural exports have quadrupled since the signing of NAFTA”,which, says Nelsen, translates into roughly 35,000 jobs in Illinois.It’s also a primary destination for Wendell Shauman’s crops.

“Mexico is our number one corn market now, you can’t walk away from that”,which is why Shauman was relieved when the Trump administration announced it wanted to renegotiate – not abandon –NAFTA, just after withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP earlier in the year.

“That’s what we walk away from that, that’s, in my mind, that’s a huge mistake, if we get back into it, maybe we can still salvage some.”Until then, Wendell Shauman is waiting to see what changes in NAFTA the Trump administration wants,and how the weather will affect his harvest – and ultimately his bottom line - later this year.

Kane Farabaugh, VOA News, Alton Illinois.