The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) submitted comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on its 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE) Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, which details significant barriers to U.S. exports of goods and services, U.S. foreign direct investment, and U.S. electronic commerce in important export markets.
The report highlights agricultural trade barriers such as burdensome facility registration requirements, SPS regulations, import licensing requirements that are not science-based, and a lack of adherence to international science- and risk-based standards.
The NTE Report helps U.S. negotiators in their efforts to reduce or eliminate trade barriers and is a valuable tool for enforcing U.S. trade laws and agreements. In its comments for the most recent report, NPPC listed 20 countries and the European Union as having varying tariff and/or non-tariff barriers limiting U.S. pork exports. Among them:
• Australia — Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) barriers related to Porcine Reproductive Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS).
• China — Ban on the feed additive ractopamine rather than follow the international U.N. Codex commission’s maximum residue limit (MRL).
• India — Export certificate requirements.
• Japan — Gate price mechanism that limits pork imports.
• South Africa — Prohibition on pork offal and trichinae-related freezing of pork.
• Taiwan — Country-of-origin labeling requirements and non-science-based MRLs for animal health products used in hogs.
Published annually since 1986, the NTE looks at market barriers to which 99% of U.S. goods and 66% of U.S. services are exported. Trade obstacles include tariffs, technical barriers to trade, SPS measures, government procurement policies, intellectual property protections — or lack thereof — and subsidies.
Trade barriers limit U.S. agricultural exports, vital to America’s farmers, ranchers, and the overall U.S. economy, supporting about 1 million U.S. jobs. For pork producers, pork exports contribute significantly to their bottom line. Last year, producers shipped more than $8.2 billion of product to foreign destinations, and those exports equated to an average of $63.76 in value for each hog marketed.
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