The potential for sales growth to America’s top customers — China, Canada, Mexico and Japan — is better today because a better foundation has been built by recent trade negotiations, according to the chief ag negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office.

“These four have been our top markets for a long time, accounting for 47% of our total ag exports, and we have overhauled all of them in the past couple of years,” USTR’s Gregg Doud said last week during an ag outlook conference in Kansas City sponsored by the AgriPulse news service. “We’ve made unprecedented progress and gotten provisions in these deals that we’ve dreamed about for years.”

The Phase 1...