Farmscape for April 24, 2019

The National Pork Producers Council is applauding the U.S. International Trade Commission's evaluation of the benefits of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement but remains concerned over the influence U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum will have on ratification.
The U.S. International Trade Commission, in its evaluation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, has concluded the agreement will have an overall favorable impact on the U.S. economy.
Jim Monroe, the Senior Director of Communications with the National Pork Producers Council, says the new agreement preserves the zero tariff trade on pork of the previous North American trade agreement under which U.S. pork exports have grown exponentially.

Clip-Jim Monroe-National Pork Producers Council:
It certainly reinforces the benefits that the U.S. economy will derive across a variety of sectors and so we're glad to see an agreement that preserves those benefits and again, zero tariff pork trade in North America is something very important to our U.S. pork producers but there's an important issue that needs to be resolved likely before the USMCA will be ratified by the three countries.
That is the trade dispute that exists because of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum coming  from Mexico and from Canada.
Right now we're facing trade retaliation from Mexico because of those tariffs.
It is a 20 percent punitive tariff on U.S. pork.
We are not facing retaliation from Canada but that could change.
They could decide to carousel the list of products that they have retaliation against and pork could end up on that list so we remain very concerned about those metal tariffs.

Monroe says based on comments from the three countries, including from members of Congress in the United States, the metal tariff issue is likely to be a factor moving forward but aside from that there is good support for ratification.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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