In January 1980, President Carter decided to punish Russia for invading Afghanistan. That action left U.S. grain companies holding sales on the books to Russia for billions of bushels of wheat and corn that they could not ship and had already purchased from farmers. President Carter made all of those contracts worthless with a stroke of the pen. The immediate and correct response from grain companies was to pull all of their cash bids to those farmers. They had no choice with no place to go with another single bushel. This embargo followed six or seven years of enthusiasm about U.S. export potential based on the initial grain sales to Russia, which prompted the unprecedented expansion of capacity at virtually every U.S. export range. Those...