The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) led agricultural organizations in urging the Biden administration’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to recommit to an aggressive trade agenda, hold trading partners to their commitments, and improve enforcement mechanisms for existing trade agreements.
In a letter sent to USTR’s Katherine Tai, the groups asked that she engage on trade policies “to bolster our global competitive standing around the world.”
“U.S. agriculture is foundational to the American economy – reaching far beyond farms and rural communities to support more than 48 million jobs across the country. The U.S. food and agriculture industries contributed $2.8 trillion (about $8,600 per person in the U.S.) in total wages this past year and generated over $9.6 trillion (about $30,000 per person in the U.S.) in total economic output,” the letter said.
In addition, agricultural exports, which were more than $175 billion last year, account for about 20% of total production.
Despite the impressive numbers, USDA estimated a fiscal 2023 – Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023 – agricultural trade deficit of $16.6 billion. It is only the fourth time over the past 55 years the balance of trade in farm goods has been in the red, and USDA is forecasting a bigger deficit for fiscal 2024, NPPC said in Capital Update.
‘We call on USTR and the Administration to stringently and effectively enforce existing trade agreements. The success of U.S. agriculture depends on a rules-based system of trade, including enforcement mechanisms designed to protect U.S. agriculture from trade distorting impacts by trading partners’ non-compliance. To that end, the U.S. should also complete negotiations for WTO dispute settlement system reform in 2024, as it has already committed,” the letter noted.
NPPC has been urging USTR to open new and expand existing markets for U.S. pork through comprehensive trade agreements that eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers to American products. It supports enforcing international trade rules and ensuring that U.S. trading partners live up to their trade commitments, the organization explained.
“U.S. agricultural trade is vital to America’s farmers and the overall U.S. economy. Over the past four decades – particularly since it began negotiating free trade agreements – the United States has had agricultural trade surpluses almost every year. For the U.S. pork industry, exports contribute significantly to producers’ bottom line. Last year, when producers shipped a record $8.16 billion of product to foreign destinations, those exports added the equivalent of $63.76 to the price producers received for each hog marketed and accounted for a record 29.6% of total production,” NPPC said.
The letter was signed by more than 30 other organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, Meat Institute, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
