Daniel Gordon Amstutz (November 8, 1932 – March 20, 2006) was an American government official and business executive who played a prominent role during negotiation of the

Uruguay Round The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), spanning from 1986 to 1993 and embracing 123 countries as "contracting parties". The R ...

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its pre ...

rules on

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, and in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Early life and education

Amstutz was born November 8, 1932, in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. Amstutz was raised in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

before the family relocated to

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

in 1946, where he graduated from

Columbus North High School Columbus North High School (CNHS) is one of the public high schools located in Columbus, Indiana. It is part of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC). Columbus North High School was previously known as Columbus High School. It ...

in 1950 and the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

in 1954. At Ohio State, Amstutz was president of the Student Senate and on the Student court, as well as being President of the Iota Chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

Career

After graduating from

in 1954, Amstutz joined

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in ter ...

, where he began in grain trading, eventually heading the wheat desk. He played a lead role in establishing Cargill Investor Services, of which he was president and CEO. He was persuaded to join

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

by its top management who, having bought a metals trading company, were looking for someone to provide direction about ways to operate in futures. From 1983 to 1987, he was Under Secretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs, then served as Ambassador and Chief Negotiator for Agriculture during the

talks from 1987 to 1989. Amstutz founded the

Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-127), known informally as the Freedom to Farm Act, the FAIR Act, or the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, was the omnibus 1996 farm bill that, among other provisions, revises and simplifies ...

, which eliminated tariffs and greatly reduced federal

price support In economics, a price support may be either a subsidy, a production quota, or a price control, each with the intended effect of keeping the market price of a good higher than the competitive equilibrium level. In the case of a price control, a p ...

s for American

small farm Small may refer to: Science and technology * SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language * Small (anatomy), the lumbar region of the back * ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication * <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text ...

s, causing farmers to go

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debt ...

Iraqi Occupation

From April to September 2003, Amstutz led the U.S. Government’s agriculture reconstruction efforts in Iraq, serving as U.S. Senior Ministry Advisor for Agriculture. Given Amstutz's strong ties to U.S. multinational grain-trading companies, this appointment by the

George W. Bush administration George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic ...

provoked criticism. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' reported on a criticism from the development and humanitarian group

Oxfam Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...

. According to the paper,

"
Kevin Watkins Kevin Charles Watkins is at the London School of Economics as a visiting professor of development practice at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. Recently the chief executive of Save the Children UK, from October 2016 until his resignation in ...
, Oxfam's policy director, said Mr Amstutz would 'arrive with a suitcase full of open-market rhetoric', and was more likely to try to dump cheap US grain on the potentially lucrative Iraqi market than encourage the country to rebuild its once-successful agricultural sector. Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission...This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market - but singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a developing country.

Criticism of the Amstutz appointment was also made in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

, where it was asked "why this decision was made in preference to appointing one of the experienced agricultural development specialists available within the United Nations system."

Lobbying

From 1992 to 1995, Amstutz served as executive director of the

International Grains Council The International Grains Council (IGC) is an intergovernmental organization which oversees the Grains Trade Convention and seeks to promote cooperation in the global grain trade. It’s tasked with enhancing market stability and world food sec ...

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

. During his tenure, Amstutz expanded the council's coverage beyond wheat to rice and coarse grains, he launched the annual grain conferences, and he set a path for expanding the membership. From 1995 to 2000, Amstutz served as executive director of the North American Export Grain Association. At NAEGA, he lobbied for U.S. policies meant to foster growth in exporting and lobbied the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

to push for less lenient regulations overseas of GMO foods, particularly in Europe. Amstutz attempted to establish his own consulting company in the midst of the

Dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

Late life

Amstutz died on March 20, 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amstutz, Dan 1932 births 2006 deaths American lobbyists Cargill people General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Amstutz, Dan United States Under Secretaries of Agriculture