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More than three-quarters of the acreage under GMO cultivation is in just three countries: the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. And almost all of the modified crops have been designed to either resist insects or tolerate herbicides used to kill weeds, which is helpful only to farmers with access to those chemical inputs.
Large multinational corporations developed most currently available GMOs with large-scale, industrial agriculture in mind. These GMOs have had clear benefits for some farmers, seed companies, and herbicide producers (the latter two are often the same), but less tangible benefits for consumers.
Labor-intensive manufactures from poor countries are hit with 13.56 percent US tariff rate. Opening US markets to such goods would help spur development at little cost to the United States.
US regional trade agreements have surged from one in the 1980s to 15 now.
US exports to developing
countries have grown by more than 400 percent over the
last 20 years. Today, they total more than $600 billion
annually and are greater than US exports to China,
Europe, and Japan combined.
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