We complain a lot about trade protectionism on the part of other countries but we are not without blame. Also, experience shows that our protectionism seems to boomerang right back on us. Remember when President Bush imposed duties on imported steel. In response, the Russians stopped buying our chicken, and poultry prices collapsed. So did pork. Just too much protein. The American farmer ended up paying the price.

Here we go again. Since we still have on the books and use a terrible law known as…

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The vision of what the 2007 farm bill and the DOHA Trade Agreement might look like is more clouded than ever.

To start the ball rolling, Trade Ambassador Rob Portman said the U.S. was willing to cut our trade distorting domestic subsidies by 60%. For those of us in farming, that offer made us sit up in alarm. But if market access is great, it might work.

Well, that's when France spoke up and put the European Union on notice that France would not accept the kind of market access that we would…

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