Clayton Yeutter, Blunt Negotiator of Intricate Trade Deals, Dies at 86 -<br />By DANIEL E. SLOTNIKMARCH 8, 2017<br />Clayton Yeutter, a lawyer who oversaw negotiations with Canada under President Ronald Reagan<br />that became the basis for the North American Free Trade Agreement, died on Saturday at his home in Potomac, Md.<br />A farmer from birth, Mr. Yeutter, who was secretary of agriculture under President George Bush and, earlier, the United States trade<br />representative under Reagan, negotiated complex economic deals with a bluntness more common in pastures than in politics.<br />As secretary of agriculture under Mr. Bush from 1989 to 1991, Mr. Yeutter passed a 1990 farm bill<br />that dialed back some of the farm subsidies approved in 1985, creating a more market-oriented approach to agriculture policy.<br />Before he was confirmed as agriculture secretary in 1989, a profile in called him<br />“a burly, back-thumping, 58-year-old official with the voice of a hog caller.”<br />Mr. Yeutter often employed that voice to argue for reduced restrictions on trade.<br />When the deal was made final on Oct. 4, 1987, Mr. Yeutter told Sam Donaldson of ABC News<br />that it was “the most important bilateral arrangement that we’ve ever negotiated in the history of the country,” adding that workers on both sides of the border should consider it a “win-win.”<br />“When you have an agreement in which economic activity is going to increase in both countries, there should be more jobs in both places,” he said.
