The ART is an excellent agreement, which preserves Bangladesh’s access to the critical US market with competitive 19 per cent tariffs – down from 35 per cent without the agreement — while making changes in Bangladesh’s tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers designed to encourage imports from the United States to balance our trade.

We cannot have lasting economic prosperity if those countries that export to the United States then import primarily from other countries – creating massive and chronic trade deficits that impoverish the very market you rely on.

If you are going to sell to us, you need to make an effort to buy from us. And at the very least, not impose massive tariffs and arcane and even absurd non-tariff trade barriers like radiation tests of our wheat and tests for pesticide we don’t use, together with total tax incidence on our exports of up to 150 per cent.

Let me share the concrete steps Bangladesh has committed to besides improving the treatment of US exports in general: Bangladesh has committed to purchasing $3.5 billion in US agricultural products—wheat, soy, cotton, and corn.

These are high quality US commodities, which the Government of Bangladesh and private buyers have assured us are of outstanding quality which makes them high value purchases.

The press and pundits like to focus on the price, but experts focus on things like quality and protein content. You get what you pay for.

The spoilage rate on wheat bought by the Ministry of Food from other countries was as high as 20 per cent, while the US wheat spoilage is just 2.5 per cent.

The protein content jumped from 11.5 per cent to 14 per cent. I call that high value, and I’m proud that Bangladeshis will be able to enjoy high quality US agricultural commodities as a result of this agreement.