Rep. Adrian Smith joins Farmers for Free Trade tour calling for new trade deals
By Brian Beach 
, Reporter Nebraska Public Media
Sept. 5, 2025, 3:30 p.m. ·
Listen To This Story
National advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade kicked off its “Motorcade for Trade” listening tour in the Saline County village of Dorchester on Friday.
The tour comes as Nebraska farmers enter the harvest season with above-average corn and soybean yields and dismal prices.
“We’re on the verge of a farm crisis,” said Farmers for Free Trade co-executive director Brian Kuehl.
He said the cost of production for most farmers in Nebraska is above what they can get from selling their product.
“You can do that for a year. Maybe you can do that for two years, but eventually it catches up, and what we'll start to see is illiquidity,” Kuehl said. “You'll start to see farm bankruptcies and foreclosures. And those are real, tragic, personal, real stories.”
Third District Rep. Adrian Smith also addressed the crowd of several dozen ag leaders at the Farmers Cooperative in Dorchester.
Smith, who serves as chair of the Congressional Agriculture Trade Caucus and Congressional Biofuels Caucus, said he is focused on helping develop new markets for Nebraska crops, both domestically through expanded biofuel production and overseas through new trade deals.
He said Congress should look to ratify existing trade agreements and highlighted new trade talks with the United Kingdom and Brazil, while acknowledging more work needs to be done.
Extending the African Growth an Opportunities Act, which facilitates trade with sub-Saharan Africa, is among the congressman’s priorities. The legislation was first approved in 2000 and was extended in 2015 but is set to expire at the end of the month.
Kuehl said he wants to see the Trump administration prioritize and finalize several key trade deals in populous countries instead of splitting its efforts.
“I do worry that maybe they've bitten off too much,” he said. “We need some big wins on the board, and if I were advising the White House, what I'd be saying is, let's focus on two or three really important countries.”
Smith couldn’t give an exact timeline on when deals may be finalized but said the administration is making progress.