Highlights: * USDA, Economic Research Service researchers created and studied a hypothetical scenario in which all global agricultural tariffs are removed. * The simulation showed that without tariffs, global trade would increase 11 percent and would grow in all regions other than the European Union. * Additionally, a removal of agricultural tariffs would spark an increase in consumer well-being-essentially the equivalent impact of income changes-of $56.3 billion. If tariffs do limit trade, what might happen if all agricultural tariffs were removed? A USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) study addressed that question in a recent report, Reforming Market Access in Agricultural Trade: Tariff Removal and the Trade Facilitation Agreement (https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid= 100865). While most regions have small (5 percent or less) or no tariff on corn, South Korea's corn tariffs average 328 percent as part of its tariff-rate quota. Because South Korea imported one-third of all global corn imports in 2014, its tariff carries a heavier weight in the calculation of the average global tariff, driving it above 50 per...

How the Removal of Tariffs Would Impact Agricultural Trade

10.22004/ag.econ.311330