 Standing in a cotton field in that country, Malian farmers passionately described the U.S. actions [of domestic protectionism] as 'sabotage' in that they were causing an increase in poverty instead of the desired poverty reduction that the U.S. government has been publicly calling for"; the Canadian senators concluded that "[i]n Mali, the greatest demand that was made of us was not more aid, but rather a fair world trading system where cotton farmers could export their competitive products".Canadian international commodity trade patterns since 1990 can be characterized by aggregating product import and export volumes for the top 25 harmonized system codes for individual years in the Trade Data Online search interface to Statistics Canada data provided by Industry Canada.Compared to the previous decade, the profile of Canadian exports to Mali has altered in the 2000s, with mining equipment and printed matter more than doubling their combined shares, from 17% during 1990–1999 to 37% from 2000 to 2008.