John Block Reports from Washington

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 the Byrd amendment to protect against imports, we find our trading partners are slapping tariffs on pork, tobacco, dairy and other products. In 2003 the World Trade Organization found the Byrd Amendment to be illegal, but we keep using it.

Here's the way the law works: US companies may complain that foreign imports are coming into the US below their cost of production. If our government finds that to be the case, duties are slapped on the imports. The duties are collected and then given to the companies that complained.

This is outrageous legislation any way you look at it. Just be honest. In a free market economy products are sold below the cost of production sometimes. No one wants to sell below their cost of production because obviously that is the road to bankruptcy. But sometimes we have no other alternative. I hate to think of how many hogs I have sold for less than my cost. I'm grateful that I'm not doing that now. Unfortunately we are all selling corn below our cost of production. We got too much corn, and we have to get rid of it. We're exporting our corn to other countries below the cost of production.

The House of Representatives put language in the budget reconciliation to kill the Byrd Amendment. The Senate doesn't have that language in their reconciliation bill. The houses will have to reconcile their differences.

Encourage your senators to get rid of this stupid, costly law.

Until next week, I am John Block from Washington.