With the lifting of U.S. tariffs on imported Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum and the resulting retaliatory, tariffs the National Pork Producers Council is shifting its focus to the ratification of the USMCA and seeing the end of the U.S. trade war with China.
The United States has lifted duties imposed last year on steel and aluminum imported from Canada and Mexico and, in turn, Canada and Mexico have ended retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.
Jim Monroe, the Senior Director of Communications with the National Pork Producers Council, said it’s excellent news that zero tariff pork trade is back with Mexico and move on to swift ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and preserve zero tariff pork trade for the long term.
“We’re turning our focus to a couple of things,” said Monroe. “Ratification of the USMCA, we will be watching very closely how members of Congress vote on that managing it as a key vote and tracking closely those who support and those who don’t support the agreement. The other issue is China because of an unprecedented sales opportunity in China. Always an important market but what we have shipped there in the past pales in comparison to the potential now, given the drop in domestic production in China with the African Swine Fever outbreak in that country. Right now, we’re facing 62 percent tariffs there.”
He said most of that is punitive tariffs because of the ongoing trade dispute, so the push is on to end to that trade dispute. China is the largest pork-consuming nation in the world with pork a staple of the Chinese diet, and they need supply, and there is no better supplier and more reliable supplier of pork than the United States.
Monroe said the growth potential in China is tremendous if U.S. pork producers can get out from under the punitive tariffs they currently face.
The Director of Risk Management with HAMS Marketing Services added his voice to the removal of U.S. tariffs on Canadian and Mexican aluminum and steel and Canadian and Mexican retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products is a definite positive for North American pork producers.
Tyler Fulton, the Director of Risk Management with HAMS Marketing Services, says that unequivocally is a positive for the North American hog market.
Colin Robertson, the Vice President of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the resolution of Canada, Mexico, U.S. steel and the aluminum issue is a crucial step for North American trade and believes the decisive factor, pressures from within the United States. The retaliatory tariffs that Canada imposed in response to the American Tariffs were hurting the American farm community particularly because the tariffs hit smack on a whole series of American agricultural production and machinery coming from the United States.
“A lot of the farm machinery used in Canada the U.S. makes, some of it with Canadian steel, so these retaliatory tariffs put pressure on American workers. They found that their ability to sell into Canada was less because it meant that we could sometimes buy things from Europe and other parts of the world for cheaper and so they were putting pressure on their members of Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives,” Robertson said. “Remember the steel and aluminum production employment in the U.S. is probably around somewhere between 45 thousand and 60 thousand workers; whereas there are hundreds of thousands, estimates of up to 600 thousand workers who use steel in the production of everything from tin cans to tanks.”
He said with their costs going up it meant that they were less competitive with the rest of the world, so the domestic pressures he thinks was decisive in convincing the President and Mr. Lighthizer to lift the tariffs.
Robertson said this is a positive development for North American trade and an essential step in moving the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement forward. •
— By Harry Siemens