Agriculture is looking for every way possible to boost farm exports, at a time when other trade avenues seem to be limited or closed. TPP is off the table, the NAFTA renegotiations may or may not bear fruit, and U.S.-imposed sanctions on China over North Korea could invite retaliation. So where does U.S. agriculture go?
One answer came recently when U.S. efforts to remove existing trade barriers paid off. National Pork Producers Spokesman Dave Warner on Argentina’s opening to U.S. pork.
The U.S. has also made some inroads in the South African market, but Warner says the pork industry’s pressing for a bigger opening. Sales in the EU are just a fraction of U.S. pork exports. Closed markets include Russia and India. Warner says export sales remain the answer to boosting domestic prices.
The same demand-price boost for grain that faces GMO barriers in the EU and China. Warner says the big answer is still free trade agreements.
For now, though, new trade deals seem to be on hold, as the U.S. works to improve NAFTA. But as NAFTA’s fate hangs in the balance, the U.S.’s trading partners are not waiting, but working on trade deals of their own, without the U.S.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.