U.S. agricultural trade is vital to America’s farmers and the overall U.S. economy. Over the past four decades, agricultural exports have grown significantly, particularly to countries with which the U.S. has negotiated FTAs, explains the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). That’s why NPPC recently submitted comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on “objectives and strategies that advance U.S. supply chain resilience in trade negotiations, enforcement, and other initiatives.”
USTR claimed that past U.S. trade and investment policies have led to supply chain vulnerabilities and the “movement of global production to countries with weaker rules and standards related to labor, environment, transparency, and governance issues.”
The Biden administration’s trade efforts have focused almost exclusively on those areas and very little on market access issues, NPPC wrote in Capital Update.
NPPC wrote that it respectfully disagrees with much of the language in the Federal Register Notice (FRN) relating to U.S. agricultural trade.
“The background section of the FRN states that U.S. trade and investment policy over the last several decades has been “designed to incentivize short-term cost-efficiency and drive tariff liberalization with the goal of creating an unfettered global marketplace,” NPPC wrote.
U.S. trade and investment policy over the last several decades has been beneficial for the U.S. pork industry, the U.S. agricultural sector, and the broader U.S. economy, NPPC said. Abandoning that policy “will cause long-term damage to economic prospects of U.S. agricultural producers.” NPPC urged USTR to rethink its approach, including eschewing FTAs, which “are an indispensable tool to enhance U.S. agricultural competitiveness, as well as supply chain resiliency.”
“An increased focus on supply chain resilience should seek to use all available tools – including proven tools, such as FTAs and other market liberalization and standards harmonization mechanisms – to shore up trade with regional partners, geopolitical “friends,” and those countries that share U.S. values. Many friendly partner countries are in a strong position to help protect U.S. consumers and businesses from future supply shocks in key industries, but those relationships need to be formalized and enshrined via robust, long-term, forward-facing economic integration initiatives, including FTAs,” NPPC wrote.
