II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 743
To require the establishment of a joint task force to identify and eliminate
barriers to agriculture exports of the United States.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY26, 2025
Mr. C
ASSIDY(for himself, Mrs. HYDE-SMITH, Mr. BOOZMAN, Ms. ERNST, and
Mr. T
UBERVILLE) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
referred to the Committee on Finance
A BILL
To require the establishment of a joint task force to identify
and eliminate barriers to agriculture exports of the
United States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Prioritizing Offensive 4
Agricultural Disputes and Enforcement Act’’ or the ‘‘Ag 5
Disputes Act’’. 6
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 7
Congress finds the following: 8
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(1) Agricultural competitiveness through access 1
to international markets is a vital part of the econ-2
omy of the United States. 3
(2) A healthy, well-functioning, rules-based 4
trading system is the basis for the success of agri-5
culture exports of the United States. 6
(3) When foreign governments erect trade bar-7
riers, that makes it difficult for agricultural export-8
ers in the United States to compete in the global 9
marketplace and undermines the rules-based trading 10
system. 11
(4) Those trade barriers can harm farmers, 12
ranchers, workers, and businesses in the United 13
States and can also lead to higher prices for con-14
sumers and a less resilient international trading sys-15
tem. 16
(5) Dispute settlement is available to the Presi-17
dent through trade agreements with 163 countries, 18
and there are protectionist trade barriers to agri-19
culture exports of the United States in many of 20
those countries. 21
(6) Many of those barriers are systemically im-22
portant. For example, the use by the Government of 23
India of unrestrained price support programs vio-24
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lates the commitments by that government under 1
the World Trade Organization. 2
(7) The Government of India recognizes that its 3
price support programs violate its commitments 4
under the World Trade Organization, so instead of 5
reforming its programs, it has repeatedly demanded 6
an exemption from disputes for those programs. 7
Moreover, the Government of India has tried to pre-8
vent discussions at the World Trade Organization of 9
any other significant agricultural trade issue unless 10
it gets a permanent exemption from disputes for 11
those programs. 12
(8) The Government of India has repeatedly 13
raised its minimum price supports, which has had 14
negative effects on several commodity markets and 15
most notably has led to its dominance of the global 16
rice trade, with a 40-percent share of the global 17
market since marketing year 2020 through 2021. 18
India is also the world’s largest producer of pulses 19
and second largest producer of wheat, peanuts, and 20
cotton. 21
(9) The United States Trade Representative 22
submitted a counter notification at the World Trade 23
Organization in 2023 showing that price supports by 24
the Government of India for rice increased from 25
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78.6 percent of the value of production in marketing 1
year 2014 through 2015 to 93.9 percent of the value 2
of production in marketing year 2020 through 2021, 3
compared to the limit at the World Trade Organiza-4
tion on increased price supports of 10 percent of the 5
value of production. That counter notification also 6
showed price supports by the Government of India 7
for wheat increasing from 77.7 percent to 81.3 per-8
cent during the same period. Previous counter notifi-9
cations have shown similar violations by the Govern-10
ment of India for other commodities. For example, 11
in the marketing year 2016 through 2017, price 12
supports by the Government of Indian were 67.9 13
percent for cotton, 31.7 percent for chickpeas, 41 14
percent for lentils, and 47.4 percent for pulses over-15
all. 16
(10) Minor attempts to reform the agriculture 17
subsidy system in India in marketing year 2020 18
through 2021 failed to produce results. Reforms en-19
acted as a result of those attempts would not have 20
changed the policies that violate commitments under 21
the World Trade Organization, but would have 22
merely provided farmers in India with opportunities 23
to sell their products outside of the government-run 24
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mandi system, but those reforms were ultimately re-1
pealed. 2
(11) Dispute settlement is an effective way to 3
provide a neutral assessment of compliance with 4
terms of trade agreements and empower internal re-5
formers who recognize a problem but have not been 6
able to overcome entrenched resistance. 7
(12) Global agriculture is uniquely susceptible 8
to trade barriers and requires special attention to re-9
solve myriad systemic and economically significant 10
trade violations that impede the development of a re-11
silient, sustainable, and rules-based agricultural 12
trading system. 13
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 14
It is the sense of Congress that— 15
(1) the President should accelerate efforts to 16
address foreign trade barriers that harm agriculture 17
exports of the United States; 18
(2) the United States Trade Representative and 19
the Secretary of Agriculture both have a critical role 20
in developing agricultural trade disputes; 21
(3) Congress and the private sector have key 22
roles to play in the development of disputes and ag-23
ricultural trade enforcement strategy; 24
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(4) in the case of price supports by the Govern-1
ment of India, the President has exhausted other op-2
tions available through the World Trade Organiza-3
tion short of requesting consultations under the Dis-4
pute Settlement Understanding of the World Trade 5
Organization; 6
(5) there should be a plan and definitive dead-7
lines in place for a request for consultations and es-8
tablishment of a panel under the Dispute Settlement 9
Understanding; 10
(6) the United States Trade Representative and 11
the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with 12
Congress and the private sector, should jointly de-13
velop a proactive enforcement strategy for address-14
ing systemic and economically significant trade bar-15
riers in the agriculture sector; and 16
(7) the Office of the United States Trade Rep-17
resentative is the lead agency for trade policy of the 18
United States. 19
SEC. 4. AGRICULTURAL TRADE ENFORCEMENT TASK 20
FORCE. 21
(a) E
STABLISHMENT.—Not later than 30 days after 22
the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall 23
establish a joint task force to be known as the ‘‘Agricul-24
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tural Trade Enforcement Task Force’’ (in this section re-1
ferred to as the ‘‘Task Force’’). 2
(b) M
EMBERSHIP.—The Task Force shall be com-3
prised of the following members: 4
(1) Employees of the Foreign Agricultural Serv-5
ice of the Department of Agriculture, who shall be 6
appointed by the Under Secretary of Agriculture for 7
Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs. 8
(2) Employees of the Office of the United 9
States Trade Representative, who shall— 10
(A) be appointed by the General Counsel 11
and the Chief Agricultural Negotiator; and 12
(B) have appropriate expertise in agricul-13
tural trade policy and trade enforcement. 14
(3) Employees from other Federal agencies as 15
determined by the United States Trade Representa-16
tive or the Secretary of Agriculture. 17
(c) D
UTIES.— 18
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Task Force shall— 19
(A) identify trade barriers to agriculture 20
exports of the United States that are vulnerable 21
to dispute settlement under the World Trade 22
Organization or other trade agreements to 23
which the United States is a party; 24
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(B) develop and implement a strategy for 1
enforcing violations of trade agreements related 2
to those trade barriers; 3
(C) identify like-minded trading partners 4
that could act as co-complainants or primary 5
complainants on disputes relating to specific 6
trade barriers that are systemically or economi-7
cally important to the United States; and 8
(D) report to Congress pursuant to sub-9
section (d). 10
(2) C
ONSULTATION.—In carrying out the duties 11
under paragraph (1), the Task Force shall regularly 12
consult, to the extent necessary and appropriate, 13
with the following: 14
(A) Relevant stakeholders in the private 15
sector, including the agricultural trade advisory 16
committees. 17
(B) Federal agencies that are not rep-18
resented on the Task Force. 19
(C) Like-minded trading partners that are 20
similarly concerned with trade barriers and are 21
potential participants in a dispute settlement 22
process. 23
(d) R
EPORTS.— 24
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(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after 1
the date of the enactment of this Act, and not less 2
frequently than quarterly thereafter, the Task Force 3
shall submit to Congress a report on the progress of 4
the Task Force in identifying and addressing trade 5
barriers to agriculture exports of the United States. 6
(2) E
LEMENTS.—Each report submitted under 7
paragraph (1) shall include the following: 8
(A) The systemic and economically signifi-9
cant trade barriers that have been identified by 10
the Task Force. 11
(B) A justification for including those 12
trade barriers in the report. 13
(C) The progress that has been made in 14
developing dispute settlement cases and an as-15
sessment of whether further information is re-16
quired. 17
(D) The current status of ongoing disputes 18
and the implementation of panel decisions, arbi-19
tration decisions, or decisions by the Appellate 20
Body of the World Trade Organization. 21
(3) C
ONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION .— 22
(A) I
N GENERAL.—The Task Force shall 23
remove from each report submitted under para-24
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graph (1) any information determined by the 1
Task Force to be confidential. 2
(B) B
RIEFING.—For each report required 3
to be submitted under paragraph (1), the 4
United States Trade Representative and the 5
Secretary of Agriculture shall provide to mem-6
bers of Congress, congressional staff, and 7
cleared advisors a briefing on the information 8
determined by the Task Force to be confidential 9
and removed from the report pursuant to sub-10
paragraph (A). 11
(e) C
ONSULTATIONSWITHINDIA.— 12
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Task Force shall in-13
clude as part of the first report required under sub-14
section (d)(1) a plan for filing a request for con-15
sultations under the World Trade Organization with 16
respect to the price supports implemented by the 17
Government of India with respect to agricultural 18
products, which shall include other members of the 19
World Trade Organization that have been identified 20
and approached as potential co-complainants. 21
(2) E
LEMENTS.—The plan required under 22
paragraph (1) shall include— 23
(A) specific claims that the United States 24
Trade Representative intends to make during 25
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the consultations requested pursuant to the 1
plan; and 2
(B) a timeline for— 3
(i) requesting those consultations; and 4
(ii) requesting the establishment of a 5
panel under the World Trade Organization 6
in the event that the Government of India 7
fails to provide a satisfactory path to com-8
pliance by the date that is 60 days after 9
the date of receipt of the request for con-10
sultations. 11
Æ
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