Excerpts from the Star-Tribune:
As one of the most global U.S. companies, Cargill knows well the land mines of international commerce.
A Cargill rice mill in Venezuela gets nationalized. Government security forces pay a midnight visit to a sugar mill in Syria. Iraq suspends a key trading permit when a big wheat shipment mysteriously vanishes. Export and tax policies in Argentina bedevil Cargill’s beef and grain businesses for years.
A behind-the-scenes look at these and other Cargill trade tussles is contained in U.S. State Department cables that have been leaked to WikiLeaks.
The cables are testimony to a long-standing diplomatic mission: to promote U.S. economic interests abroad. They also show how a major global company like Cargill works to protect its interests abroad, sometimes with the help of the U.S. government.