Editorial: Winds Of Change Impacting U.S. Status Around World

The quality of life in the United States has unquestionably been altered for all time by our involvement in Iraq and the global battle against terrorism. But closer to home, South America, for instance, is decades into the development of its own frontier ( like our wild West), and the changes are having great impact on the U.S.

Brazil is fast improving its ability to compete with the U.S. for agricultural sales in the world marketplace. As a headline over a St. Louis Post-Dispatch feature states: “Brazil poses a growing threat to U.S. farmers.” A most telling line in the story is: “Brazil is fast transforming agriculture in much the same way that China changed manufacturing with cheap labor and low prices.”

Business is caught in a gigantic web that makes it almost impossible to compete. U.S. businesses that are not multinational and/or do not import foreign goods for sale at reduced prices are facing almost insurmountable odds in the marketplace. Look at the automotive markets. Most big-time auto dealers hedge their bets by also owning foreign car dealerships.

We are no longer the world’s food basket. We no longer make the very best of everything that is made and sell it around the world to countries incapable of producing quality goods. Countries that have grown up and have improved their products are now underselling us. Most of them have cheap labor.

The U.S., difficult as it may seem, must learn to adapt to change. We must put our collective heads together and use that ingenuity we are so proud of and come up with better mousetraps. And when our goods are pirated and knockoffs become as popular as the genuine article, come up with something new again. Stay ahead of the curve. Just as the European Union and people of South America have striven to gain the greatest benefits from their waterways, we, too, must see the writing on the wall and do likewise.

We have always expressed our belief that water transportation should not go the way of the buggy whip. Conditions are ripe for change. Transporters can adapt new procedures and improve their operations merely by being more sensitive to the demands of the country. Container-on-barge operations are but one example.

From the canoe to the flatboat to the keelboat to the steamboat to the towboats and barges, every change has been spurred on by the need for more efficient, low-cost transportation. No matter how one looks at it, the main advantages of barge transportation—the capacity to accommodate cargo that is large, heavy or extremely low-cost—still hold up in court. Population growth supports an ever-growing need for more water transportation, not less.

Being a day late and a dollar short cannot be our theme song if we are to continue to compete successfully in the world marketplace. Not only are we losing our agricultural markets to South America, but we have already been bested by a 30-year Brazilian program to produce ethanol. Last year, the Post tells us, Brazil exported 90 million gallons to the U.S.

Despite President Bush’s recent announcement in support of alternative energy sources, the U.S. has been dragging its feet for more than three decades. But the winds of change have put farmers in a position where they can benefit greatly from ethanol production and from leasing land for the location of wind farms. And some Midwest farms are switching to soybeans and are shipping their crops via rail to the Pacific Northwest.

The writing is on the wall. Towing-industry experts should be searching for new customers and facilitating change within the industry that will keep it vibrant instead of questionable. The wake-up call should also include a message to Congress that waterways should no longer be objects of neglect. Where would trucks and trains be if highways and rails were allowed to deteriorate as waterways have been?

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