Joe Biden ran on a platform that envisioned increased taxes on investors and businesses, a public health insurance option for Obamacare, lower prices on drugs, and plans to confront climate change and empower unions.

The legislation needed to implement much of that agenda might not get past the Senate. Based on the likely outcome of races yet to be called, including runoffs in Georgia, Republicans have the edge to keep control. More fiscal stimulus is likely, though less than congressional Democrats had proposed.

Biden could still wield considerable influence through executive actions and regulatory agencies, but those may be curbed by a more conservative judiciary and a Senate disinclined to confirm left-of-center appointees.

A Biden presidency would also break with some features of Trump’s administration that weren’t popular with some businesses: tense trade relations with other countries, restrictions on foreign workers and sharp criticism of companies, by name, on Twitter.

COVID-19

Business leaders worry about the resurgent pandemic. Since a vaccine may not be widely available before spring, they face the possibilities of returning to tighter restrictions and a reduced workforce.

Biden would mandate masks on federal property and urge state and local governments to require them as well. He would produce federal guidelines on when and how much states, schools and localities should dial social-distancing restrictions up or down depending on local infections. He would direct more federal resources toward developing more convenient, faster tests to detect COVID-19 and more drive-through sites for testing and contact tracing.

These steps to bring the pandemic under control faster could be at the expense of near-term economic disruptions from localized, targeted lockdowns. But Biden, like Trump, can’t compel states to comply, and many conservative states may resist.

Businesses are also counting on more federal stimulus to speed up the recovery. Biden hasn’t specified the details of any stimulus he would propose as president, since that would depend on what is enacted before the current Congress adjourns.

Democrats originally sought at least $2 trillion, including support for state and local governments to avoid layoffs; enhanced unemployment insurance benefits; and a replenished Paycheck Protection Program for small business. But with Republicans hopeful that they will retain control of the Senate, they will continue to oppose that much aid. A final package likely will be far smaller.

Taxes

Biden’s tax plans include raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from its current 21 percent (though still below 35 percent, where it stood under President Obama) and the minimum tax on foreign income to 21 percent from 10.5 percent.

He also pledged to repeal the 20 percent deduction for “pass-through” business income. (The Farm Bureau has pointed out that more the 98 percent of farm and ranches operate as pass-through businesses: sole proprietorships, partnerships and Sub S corporations. Noting that failure to extend important pass-through provisions will result in a tax increase for farmers and ranchers and leave them without ways to deal with the cyclical and unpredictable nature of their businesses.)

If Republicans control the Senate, they would likely block these tax proposals.

Because Biden could implement much of his labor and environment agenda through executive action and regulatory agencies, much rides on whom he appoints, a signal whether his approach will be more conciliatory or confrontational.

During the election, he reassured business leaders their world wouldn’t fundamentally change. The Journal suggests companies would be more likely to believe that if, for example, he picked Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard, an economist who served under Barack Obama, to serve as treasury secretary. They’d be alarmed if he chose Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Trade

Whether Biden will remove President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China is unclear, but the president-elect is unlikely to impose new ones.

“It’s really going to be one of the few policy areas where Biden can show results and do so unilaterally,” said Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a longtime trade lawyer. “Because some of his signature policies are dead-on-arrival, he’s going to need to show progress elsewhere. That’s where trade and immigration will play a pretty prominent role.”

Biden has called for a united front of pressure on competitors, most notably China. Polls suggest both Democratic and Republican voters hold increasingly less favorable views of China.

In addition, four years of Trump’s trade policy showed that many Republicans are no longer the free-traders of years past, and may seek to prevent Biden from pursuing policies seen as globalist.

Biden has described his international priority as rebuilding relationships with U.S. allies, which he could start by negotiating an end to some tariffs.
Biden has said that rather than antagonize traditional economic allies, he would seek to work with these nations to form an economic bloc to confront China.

Source: Wall Street Journal, American Farm Bureau Federation

Incumbent Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) did not prevail. The toppling of the 15-term incumbent means the House committee will no longer be represented by someone hailing from one of the more agriculturally-focused districts in the country.

Starling described Peterson as a long-time friend to farmers on both sides of the aisle and said his likely successor, U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who represents parts of Atlanta, “would bring different priorities and perhaps much more progressive views into play.”

Scott, the second-highest ranking Democrat on the Ag Committee, sent a letter to colleagues last week kicking off his campaign.

“If elected, I would approach my role as the first African American to chair the Agriculture Committee, and the first African American from Georgia to chair any committee, with a principled focus on addressing inequities in agriculture and advancing racial progress for all,” he wrote.

Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.) and Marcia Fudge (Ohio), the next two most senior Democrats on the committee, are other possible contenders for the role.

Voters re-elected Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in a race that was too close to predict in the days preceding the vote. She has been a leader on ag issues through her work on the Senate Ag Committee, Starling said.

Voters also re-elected Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a contest that Starling said could be the make-or-break seat for the Republican majority in the Senate. (That remains an open question while we await a runoff in Georgia.) Tillis is “friendly on ag issues and a worker bee on labor programs from his perch on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.”

David Valadao (R-Calif.) has won his very tight race to return to his U.S. House seat representing the 21st District. He holds a modest lead against Democrat TJ Cox, who narrowly defeated then-incumbent Valadao in 2018. (Details in the story titled “In Other Election News for Ag …)

Valadao is a former dairy farmer and is viewed as well-liked and energetic on ag issues, Starling wrote.

Sources: The Hill, Starling

In the Senate, Ag Chair Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) chose not to seek re-election, opting instead to retire.

Republican Congressman Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) was elected to fill the open Senate seat and will likely request to be assigned to the Ag Committee. Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) is the favorite to replace Roberts as chairman if Republicans remain in the majority.

All members of the Senate Agriculture Committee up for re-election this
cycle were re-elected with one exception. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), is headed to a Jan. 5 runoff with Democrat Raphael Warnock because neither candidate received the required 50 percent majority required in Georgia.

On the House Ag Committee, Reps. Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.), Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) lost to Republican challengers. Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.) trails in his race, where a judge has put a temporary hold on the counting of ballots, and TJ Cox (D-Calif.) trails by about 4,500 with only 70 percent of the vote reported nearly a week after the polls closed.

Every Republican member of the House Ag Committee was re-elected or their seats were retained by Republicans.

Question: The United States has worked assertively over many different administrations to set the example for fair and open trade, for resolving trade disputes using sound, science-based principles and standards and for gaining access to new markets. As president, how would you be a proponent for expanding trade and pursuing remedies against nations and their leaders who use various barriers to unfairly shield their markets from competition?

Biden Response

We will develop a comprehensive strategy to aggressively enforce our laws in an effective way whenever it is needed. Critically, we will also look at what new approaches and tools are needed to combat unfair trade practices jeopardizing production and jobs here and to gain access for our products in other markets.

We must address the continuous efforts to evade and circumvent our trade laws and undermine the effectiveness of our trade cases. The issues of global overcapacity, foreign state-owned enterprises, and other problems undermine our interests and can’t continue. Workers deserve to know that their government will stand by their side and stand up for their rights so they don’t have to fight unfair trade on their own or see their jobs offshored and production outsourced.

Foreign cheating will not be allowed in our administration.

Trump Response

A major focus of the Trump Administration has been to renegotiate trade deals that were weak and provided inadequate market access and import protection to US farmers and ranchers. Previous Administrations negotiated trade deals that put our farmers and ranchers in a negative position to those that we compete with in foreign markets. To address this, the Trump/Pence Administration negotiated the following significant multilateral trade agreements:

• Korea
• Japan
• USMCA
• China phase 1
  • No one knows better than our nation’s farmers and ranchers that for decades, China has stolen our technology, restricted US foreign investment, manipulated their currencies and kept US farm products out of their market.
  • China has begun making purchases under the phase 1 commitment, and in a second Trump Administration term China will have to come back to the table for more access to American farmers.

In each of these agreements the Trump/Pence Administration has negotiated better deals for farmers and ranchers than what was in place previously.

The strategy of negotiating key trade deals on a multilateral basis has been a primary focus of the Trump/Pence Administration. While the Obama/Biden Administration negotiated weak trade deals, focusing on multilateral negotiations, the Trump/Pence team negotiated successful trade agreements with the above.

In addition to the new agreements President Trump has negotiated, we have also stood by are farmers when they were targeted by unjust trade retaliation. Other countries, China in particular, thought they could force us to accept more bad trade deals by targeting our farmers. We have taken some of the revenue we received in tariffs and we have provided $28 billion in direct support to those farms and commodities that have been unjustly targeted.

For too many years, American trade policy has allowed other countries to take advantage of us. Joe Biden doesn’t have a plan on trade, he will revert to the Obama-Biden years of letting China take advantage of us.

President Trump is very grateful to the American farmer for their patriotism that enabled him to stand up to the Chinese and be the first president to force them to change their practices that have resulted in the loss of millions of jobs in the U.S.   President Trump will never ask the American farmer to bear the cost of our important work to make China play by the same rules as the rest of the world

We know our farmers want markets, they want to grow and produce things to sell here in America and to the world, we also know that they want fair and reciprocal trade deals. The farmers have stood with us as we have taken on these unfair trade practices, and we have stood with them. When President Trump wins a second term, other countries already know he means what he says on trade, and we will continue to see more favorable agreements reached in a second term. There will be more opportunities with China if they decide to take more steps to play by the rules, we will get a bigger deal done with Japan, we are in talks with other major Asian countries. President Trump is also eager to finalize a new U.S.-U.K. Trade agreement that includes significant agriculture access, and hopes that can pave the way for progress with the EU as well, one of the most unfair markets to many of our America farmers.