But Some Fear California Products Will Suffer : U.S. Agriculture Leaders Laud Quotas
American farm leaders generally welcomed as a necessary move President Reagan’s announced imposition of quotas Thursday on imports of half a dozen agricultural products from the 12 member nations of the European Communities. But there were some voices of concern that California’s specialty farmers might bear the brunt of an eventual European response.
“We’re tired of being the Sugar Daddy to the world,” said Dean Kleckner, an Iowa hog farmer and president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We’re telling them, ‘We’re not patsies any longer. We’re going to play the ballgame the way you’ve been playing it.’ ”
Kleckner, who spoke to U.S. reporters by telephone from Rotterdam, where he is leading a farm delegation in meetings with European officials on trade concerns, called Reagan’s action “reasonable and balanced.” The quotas “should not lead to a trade war,” Kleckner added, “and yet would tell the European Community that we are of firm resolve.”
‘A Hit List’
A more cautionary note was voiced in Sacramento, however, by Gregory Mignano, executive director of the California State World Trade Commission.
Mignano called the selective quotas “a hit list born of frustration over the failure of diplomatic negotiations,” but expressed concern that “the European hit list” might include California specialty crops, escalating the stakes rather than returning to meaningful negotiations.
Nuts and citrus, Mignano said, “have traditionally been used for retaliation in any escalation. . . . The issue is one over grains,” he added, “and, once again, each time the trade war escalates and they look for sacrificial lambs, it tends to be California specialty crops.”
Russell Hanlin, president of Sunkist Growers, which markets California and Arizona citrus products and exports heavily, acknowledged that California products would likely bear the brunt of a European retaliation. “I guess we’re in a game of ‘chicken’ here,” he said, “and we’re waiting to see who plays.”
Highly Selective
Hanlin called the U.S. response “decisive,” but noted that a countervailing duty slapped on European products would have been a more severe penalty than quotas, which merely limit quantities that can be imported. He also noted that the move was highly selective, since quotas on white wine would most affect Italy and West Germany; chocolate and candies, Belgium; beer, West Germany and Holland, and apple and pear juices, France.
Clare Berryhill, a San Joaquin Valley grape grower and director of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, applauded the President’s move, despite its possible adverse effects on California growers.
“I think we’ve been kicked around long enough,” Berryhill said. “I think California agriculture has reached the point that if we don’t have some positive action from our federal government, we’re going to lose the trade war anyway.
“I think our industry in California is going to support what the President is trying to do. If it takes a trade war to make our point, then let it be.”
Committed to Free Trade
Kleckner of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s largest organization of family farmers and ranchers, said that while the federation welcomes the U.S. response, it remains committed to free trade and deplores protectionist devices.
“There aren’t any winners in a trade war, if we get into that,” he said. “What we are showing is firmness in our resolve to respond immediately to get compensation (for lost markets) up front. We recognize we’re going to lose some exports” with the Iberian entry into the Common Market. “That’s not even debatable any more. It’s a question of how they compensate us for that.”
