Nebraska preparing for possible Pacific conflict

Nebraska is making progress on protecting itself from problems if there’s conflict in the Pacific, officials said Monday.

Two years ago, the state set up a committee to lead efforts to prepare for a possible conflict in the Pacific. In a ceremony Monday at the Air National Guard base in Lincoln, Lt. Gov. Joe Kelly presented Gov. Jim Pillen with the committee’s annual report. Kelly highlighted progress in ensuring state contracts don’t go to adversarial nations.

“Nebraska is an adversary-free Zone. A total review of state statute contracts resulted in strict rules prohibiting the use of funds for hardware or software or services from all of those nations: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela,” Kelly said.

Pillen thanked the committee for its work, and urged Nebraskans not to buy goods made in China.

“It's extraordinarily important that we really recognize we have severe foreign adversaries, and we've been duped in my lifetime, for God's sakes, we've been duped that we can buy happiness buying cheap crap from China, as an example,” Pillen said. We have to roll up our sleeves and not be duped anymore. “So if anybody's doing -- buying anything from China, stop it today.”

Pillen was asked, in light of soybean farmers suffering from the loss of sales to China, if international trade isn’t beneficial.

"Nebraskans don't need to worry about selling soybeans to China because we're value-added agriculture. We raise 300 million bushels of soybeans, and we process them all right here in Nebraska," he said. "So there's no Nebraska soybeans going on barges to China.

“There's other places that might have to worry about it, but we're value-added driven. Our mission, our vision of Nebraska agriculture, will be doubling ethanol production. We're going to be processing all of our corn and all and we are our soybeans so that we create further value and we don't have to sell commodities to China."

Asked about Pillen's comments, Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen said his understanding is that Nebraska can process about 77% of soybeans grown in the state, but is still part of the national production pool, impacted by tariff and trade policies.

Hansen said nationally, soybean farmers lost $44 billion from China not buying U.S. soybeans for the first 10 months of last year. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pledged $12 billion in emergency relief for growers of all crops.

"We would appreciate if the governor would use his influence with the Trump administration to honor their commitment to ag to make them whole," he said, adding that "getting into a shin-kicking mode with China is not helpful."