Branstad Talks About Improving Trade With China During USMEF Meeting

During the recent U.S. Meat Export Federation annual meeting, former Trade Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, discussed what he sees as keys to improving relations with the massive consumer of American ag products. He noted tops on his list; relationships.

“Personal relationships are really important, especially in the Asian cultures," Branstad noted. "And one of the advantages I had was I was the first American governor to host Xi Jinping when he was just a county level party secretary, and he led an ag delegation to Iowa in 1985, and I had been to China and 84 and we've been treated very well there. So, we wanted to go all out to treat him well. And so, he's still he calls me and the Iowans he met in 1984 old friends. So, building that kind of relationships is really important.”

Branstad said that while China is a big market, it’s not the only market.

“There's a lot of other growing Asian markets that we need to work at trying to reduce some of their market distorting tariffs and things like that, as well as Europe and other parts of the world," Branstad said. "So, Europe has always been a challenge for us as well, we just need to put America first, we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to open markets and knock down barriers to our agricultural products anywhere and everywhere in the world.”

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