Agriculture This Week: Confusing forces make ag trade difficult to predict

Imagine being one of those people who must anticipate what will happen in terms of trade these days.

Certainly one can no doubt make educated predictions but the current reality is so volatile any suggestion of what will occur in terms of trade in 30-days seems like it might be more a guess, and only more uncertain the farther forward one looks.

It was not long ago the world seemed largely focused on creating ever freer trade, and alliances came together to work on trade deals geared toward that goal.

While there was always a cautious overtone in the sense countries never want to give up their domestic industry in lieu of free trade – in particular in terms of food security – it seemed there was a general desire to trade.

In trade there are really good reasons why countries producing quality goods at the lowest cost should trade those goods to countries needing them, and that they should be able to make those deals as unencumbered as reasonable.

All the efforts of the recent past have at best been shelved of late, if not lost completely.

The world today is very different than it was even a few months ago.

In that regard one only needs to look south to where US president Donald Trump appears set on shifting that nation massively right creating a country far more xenophobic and far more protectionist in terms of trade. In that regard Trump tosses tariffs and threats around like they are confetti at a wedding. Making that situation worse in terms of trade is his word today, will likely change tomorrow, and no suggested deal appears to be more than a wavering mirage in his mind.

That has the rest of the world scrambling to create new and reliable trade partners.

But the rest of the world is fraught with issues that impair trade too.