WJ Editorial Personal Comment
Celebrating Over 125 Years of News
H. Nelson Spencer
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Nelson Spencer Jr.
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Frank McCormack
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Shelley Byrne
Ohio River Valley Correspondent shelley@wjinc.net
Anna Townshend
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Capt. Richard Eberhardt, Wendy Larimer, Jim Myers, Keith Norrington, Judith Powers, Jim Ross, Jeff L. Yates
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WATERWAYS JOURNAL
Weekly
FOUR THE WATERWAYS JOURNAL January 20, 2020
USMCA Passed In Senate, China Trade Deal Signed
The so-called Phase 1 trade deal with China was signed to much fanfare January 15, while the Senate passed the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and sent it to Pres- ident Trump for his signature. Together, these two deals are moves in the right direction. But the China deal leaves most tariffs in place; Trump's persuader was forgoing threatened ad- ditional tariffs. He promised that all extra tariffs will be lifted if and when a Phase 2 is agreed upon. News organization are call- ing the deal only a "pause" or "cease-fire" in the two-year-long trade war. The China deal is of great concern to soybean farmers. Until President Donald Trump's tariffs took effect and provoked Chinese tariff retaliation against soybeans, China was a $21 billion market for U.S. soybeans, and growing. Now farmers fret that market may be lost forever, no matter what happens with the trade deal. The Phase 1 leaves most tariffs in place, although China has promised buy $200 billion of U.S. agricultural products over a two-year pe- riod, a promise that has provoked some skepticism. Perhaps more important for U.S. ag interests generally is the USMCA, which was signed by Trump, Mexican President En- rique Pea Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on November 30, 2018, as a side event of the 2018 G20 Summit in Buenos Aires. It was passed by the U.S. House of Representa- tives on December 19 of last year-one day after impeachment articles were voted against Trump-on an overwhelming positive vote of 385 to 41. The Senate passed it with strong bipartisan sup- port January 16 and sent it to Trump to be signed into law. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Mexico and Canada buy more than $500 billion in American goods and ser- vices annually, including nearly 30 percent of all food and agri- cultural products the U.S. exports to the world. Taken together, Mexico and Canada make up a bigger trading partner than Chi- na for U.S. agricultural products. Some of Trump's critics called this bill nothing more than a face-saving replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1994, which Trump campaigned against. But if that were true, Trump would not have gotten such significant Democratic cooperation on a bill that Big Labor, in- cluding the AFL-CIO, strongly supported. It's true that USMCA does reproduce many features of NAF- TA. Steel and aluminum tariffs remain at 25 and 10 percent re- spectively, as under NAFTA. But there are significant differ- ences. Unlike NAFTA, USMCA has a "sunset clause." It will last only 16 years unless renewed. USMCA opens up Canada to U.S. dairy farmers much more than NAFTA did. Under NAF- TA, 62.5 percent of automobile components had to be made in either of the three countries to qualify for zero tariffs; under USMCA, that percentage is increased to 75 percent. One re- port estimates that the deal could add 28,000 auto industry jobs in the U.S. Soybean farmers and the barge industry, understandably, fo- cus on China. Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, which strongly supports waterways infrastructure improvements, said in a letter that the Phase 1 agreement provides farmers only "some" optimism. He point- edly added: "In the midst of all the commentary regarding the Phase 1 agreement, I think it is very essential to underscore the impor- tance of predictability and reliability as the U.S. and China trad- ing relationship proceeds. - Agriculture is one of the most cap- ital-intensive industries in existence. Every major component of the industry-land, seed, machinery, storage, transportation, and export capacity-is very expensive and involves multiple years to eventually realize a positive return on that investment. Those investments will only be made based on both the volume of demand and the predictability of that demand. - When it comes to trade policy, I would rather it be predictably good than sporadically great." We hope USMC will be quickly signed and implemented. It's an open question how soon Phase 2 of the China deal will get negotiated during an election season, but let's hope it's sooner rather than later. Steenhoek is right. American farmers and the waterways in- dustry have generally supported the goal of getting China to reform its unfair trade practices and open up its economy fur- ther to market reforms and transparency. But what farmers and barge operators alike really want is a return to long-term trade normalcy and predictability.
For Sale: Boat With A Great Story
By Frank McCormack
Great boats have great stories. Take my dad's old Bass Tracker fishing boat from the '90s, which went on a middle-of-the-night joy ride down the Black Warrior River below Tuscaloosa, Ala., while we were asleep in our tent. Let me back up a bit. In those days, my dad was the catfish king of the War- rior River. Our basement was a fishing jug manufacturing plant. Dad would transform 20-ounce soda bottles into de- signer, buoyancy-enhanced fishing jugs. He'd paint the in- sides fluorescent orange and stripe them with reflective tape. When we'd go fishing, we'd put in at Carver's Landing and make camp on a nearby sandbar. After nightfall, we'd head upriver to put out 50 or 75 fishing jugs, all baited with buffalo. We'd then head back down- river to drop anchor and "tight line" for catfish, while we waited for the current to carry the covey of fishing jugs our way. After a while, we'd head upriver, spotlight in hand, and look for fishing jugs that were either caught up or moving erratically, which signaled a fish was on. On the particular night in question, we returned to camp, weary from our endeavors, tied the boat to a stake in the sand, climbed in the tent and fell fast asleep. Next thing I knew, I was roused awake by a mighty spotlight on our tent and a voice echoing through the night: "Man on sandbar, I think I have your boat." My dad sat up, unzipped the tent and looked out. "Dang!" he said. "My boat's gone." Where the Bass Tracker had been just hours before, we now saw only the aluminum stake, bent suspiciously out toward the channel. This is what had happened: A series of fast-moving, up- bound towboats had passed while we slept. The draw of the wa- ter as they approached and the wake as they passed pulled our little aluminum boat off its stake. One of the passing captains saw it happen and radioed down to the next vessel headed upriver. A deckhand on that boat, somehow, was able to catch our boat and moor it alongside the towboat. My dad hastily put on his shoes and tramped down the sand- bar toward the spotlight. The captain, meanwhile, swung the bow of his lead barge as close to the bank as he could get it. Dad then waded out into the river, in the dead of night, climbed up onto the lead barge and walked back toward the stern where our boat was tied up. Within a few minutes, I heard the whine of our outboard mo- tor draw near. Dad beached the little boat, staking it again, but this time also securing it with an anchor. The Bass Tracker's first and only solo trip was over. Dad still goes on about the kindness of that crew. As often happens with boats, my dad sold the Bass Tracker SEE GREAT STORY PAGE 6
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