With the new US president taking office this week, it is also a changing of the guard across all government positions.

The one that will interest farmers in particular is the return of Tom Vilsack as secretary for agriculture, replacing outgoing Sonny Perdue.

Vilsack is no stranger to the role, having served in it during the Obama administration, and while a less confrontational tone is expected from the US in international affairs, don’t expect any major change in US policy in relation to either trade or farm support.

International trade

Indications are that the new US administration will be less proactive in developing international trade deals than the one in which President Biden served as vice-president.

For Irish farmers, the big concern was that the EU would open its market to imports of beef from the US in addition to the 35,000t tariff-free access that it currently has for hormone-free beef.

While President Trump formally put that negotiation into deep freeze when he came into office four years ago, talks were already deadlocked because of disagreement over standards.

Europe’s position on hormones was a major cause of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) stalling in 2016 and with nothing changing in Europe’s approach since, a resurrection of that negotiation seems unlikely.

UK trade negotiation

Irish farmers will also be keeping a close watch on negotiations between the US and UK on a future trade deal, one of the early targets set by the UK government in the post-EU era.

However, here too standards will be an issue. The Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC) in the UK is a powerful voice that advocates maintaining the same standards for imports that are required for British farmers.

Of course, despite being a statutory organisation, the TAC has no real teeth, in that government and parliament ultimately decides what they accept in any trade deal for the UK.

One thing is virtually certain – there is no chance the US will make a comprehensive trade deal without access for agriculture.

This point was made forcefully in the context of EU negotiations by then-US secretary for agriculture Vilsack in an interview with Irish Farmers Journal editor Justin McCarthy in 2014, and we can expect the policy to remain the same in 2021.

There are also indications that the Biden administration won’t be as free-trade focused as the Obama administration was.

Impact on US farmers

Farmers and rural dwellers in the US are traditionally Republican voters, with Democrats based in the big cities.

The Trump presidency created a trade war with China, which caused serious damage to US agricultural exports, soya and pigmeat in particular.

However, the administration softened the blow for farmers with an $8bn (€6.6bn) compensation fund in 2018, followed by $11m (€9.1m) in 2019.

US exports to China recovered in 2020 with the signing of the US-China Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement last January. This deal comes into effect in March.

This was effectively an agreement to end the trade war and clear the way for US exports to resume, which they did in 2020.

In the 11 months to the end of November, the US exported 33,000t (shipped weight) of beef to China at a value of $237.8m (€196m) and 955,008t of pigmeat, valued at $2.18bn (€1.8bn).

Pandemic payments

US farmers were protected from the effects of trade wars by the Trump administration and it was the same with the impact of COVID-19, which had a similar effect on food consumption in the US as it had in all developed countries.

Again, the Trump administration was quick to put a farm support package in place, no doubt influenced by the fact that 2020 was election year.

To date, $23.6bn (€19.5bn) has been paid out on this, which has met farmer expectations and led to criticisms from outside agriculture that farm support has been overly generous.

Despite the trade wars and the disruption caused by the pandemic, US farmers will have good memories of the Trump presidency and outgoing secretary for agriculture Sonny Perdue.

With the Biden presidency committed to a $1.9tn (€1.6tn) stimulus boost to drive a post-pandemic resurgence in the US economy, there will be a huge amount of public money in circulation.

Incoming secretary for agriculture Vilsack is therefore likely to have access to sufficient government money to maintain support for the sector for the foreseeable future.