WASHINGTON, DC- U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue issued the following statement after the Senate passed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by a bipartisan vote of 89 – 10.
“We’ve long waited for this day and now USMCA will finally head to the President’s desk,” Secretary Perdue said. “The passage of USMCA is great news for America’s farmers and ranchers. With Congressional consideration now complete, our farmers and ranchers are eager to see the President sign this legislation and begin reaping the benefits of this critical agreement. I thank President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for successfully delivering an improved and modern trade agreement and working so hard for the people of American agriculture to get this deal across the finish line.”
Background:
USMCA will advance United States agricultural interests in two of the most important markets for American farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses. This high-standard agreement builds upon our existing markets to expand United States food and agricultural exports and support food processing and rural jobs.
Canada and Mexico are our first and second largest export markets for United States food and agricultural products, totaling more than $39.7 billion food and agricultural exports in 2018. These exports support more than 325,000 American jobs.
All food and agricultural products that have zero tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will remain at zero tariffs. Since the original NAFTA did not eliminate all tariffs on agricultural trade between the United States and Canada, the USMCA will create new market access opportunities for United States exports to Canada of dairy, poultry, and eggs, and in exchange the United States will provide new access to Canada for some dairy, peanut, and a limited amount of sugar and sugar-containing products.
Earlier this year, nearly 1,000 American food and agriculture associations and companies announced their support for USMCA and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture signed a letter to Congressional leadership urging them to ratify USMCA.
In September, all former U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture since President Reagan’s Administration announced support for USMCA. In a letter to Congressional leaders, former Secretaries John Block (Reagan), Mike Espy (Clinton), Dan Glickman (Clinton), Ann Veneman (W. Bush), Mike Johanns (W. Bush), Ed Shafer (W. Bush), and Tom Vilsack (Obama) underscored the importance of passing USMCA saying, “We need a strong and reliable trade deal with our top two customers for U.S. agriculture products. USMCA will provide certainty in the North American market for the U.S. farm sector and rural economy. We strongly support ratification of USMCA.”
Key Provision: Increasing Dairy Market Access
•America’s dairy farmers will have expanded market opportunities in Canada for a wide variety of dairy products. Canada agreed to eliminate the unfair Class 6 and 7 milk pricing programs that allowed their farmers to undersell U.S. producers.
Key Provision: Biotechnology
•For the first time, the agreement specifically addresses agricultural biotechnology – including new technologies such as gene editing – to support innovation and reduce trade-distorting policies.
Key Provision: Geographical Indications
•The agreement institutes a more rigorous process for establishing geographical indicators and lays out additional factors to be considered in determining whether a term is a common name.
Key Provision: Sanitary/Phytosanitary Measures
•The three countries agree to strengthen disciplines for science-based measures that protect human, animal, and plant health while improving the flow of trade.
Key Provision: Poultry and Eggs
•U.S. poultry producers will have expanded access to Canada for chicken, turkey, and eggs.
Key Provision: Wheat
•Canada agrees to terminate its discriminatory wheat grading system, enabling U.S. growers to be more competitive.
Key Provision: Wine and Spirits
•The three countries agree to avoid technical barriers to trade through non-discrimination and transparency regarding sale, distribution, labeling, and certification of wine and distilled spirits.
WASHINGTON, DC- U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee, Thursday issued the following statement after the Senate passed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
“The U.S. economy continues to do well, including the most recent jobs report announcing more than 140,000 new jobs were created in December. But one industry that remains behind is agriculture. We must be able to expand our economic growth to the farmers and ranchers who need it most. This trade agreement will boost almost every sector of the American economy — creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and increasing wages for workers. By getting USMCA across the finish line, we are delivering on one of the issues that matters most to American families across the country.”
WASHINGTON, DC- U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) Thursday voted in favor of ratifying the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
“I voted in favor of the USMCA trade deal, which will expand trade opportunities for South Dakota’s farmers, ranchers and manufacturers,” said Rounds. “Mexico and Canada are two of our most valued trading partners. Passing the USMCA further solidifies our trade partnerships with them, and it upholds President Trump’s commitment to making better, fairer trade deals for our producers and manufacturers.”
Rounds serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which voted earlier this week to advance the USMCA.
BILLINGS, MT- R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard issued the following statement Thursday regarding the final Senate passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
“We are deeply disappointed that the U.S. Senate has ignored the interests of United States cattle farmers and ranchers by voting to extend the 25-year-old NAFTA agreement (North American Free Trade Agreement) under its new name, the USMCA.
“The USMCA makes no changes at all for the largest sector of American agriculture, the U.S. cattle industry. Importers of beef and cattle will continue to have 30% more inventories of cattle from which to source cheaper, undifferentiated cattle and beef and U.S. cattle producers are left without any ability to distinguish their superior product with a mandatory country-of-origin label. This means United States consumers will not be able to choose to support United States cattle farmers and ranchers.
“The combination of cattle and beef is the leading agricultural import from Canada and Mexico. We sell those countries less than $2 billion in cattle and beef each year and turn around and buy over $4 billion of the very same products.
“This persistent trade deficit has caused our U.S. cattle industry to shrink over the past 25 years. We now have fewer cattle producers, cattle, auction yards, feedlots and packers with which to start this new USMCA era. That means our industry now lacks the critical mass of competitive infrastructure it had when we entered NAFTA more than two decades ago.
“Because our industry now lacks the critical mass of competitive infrastructure to withstand the shock of the new USMCA, we should expect our industry to continue its contraction.
“We will now go to Congress to seek out members who share our concern that U.S. cattle producers have been rendered non-competitive under the USMCA because they have no means to distinguish their exclusively USA-produced beef from the cheaper, undifferentiated substitutes that will continue flooding our markets.”
UNDATED- The Renewable Fuels Association Thursday thanked the U.S. Senate for passing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a crucial trade pact that will benefit U.S. ethanol producers and rural economies across the nation. RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper offered the following statement:
“America’s ethanol producers look forward to seeing this important agreement in place. Canada and Mexico are among our most important and reliable export markets for both ethanol and distillers grains, and we look forward to strengthening our trading relationship with the two countries. USMCA is a good deal for the U.S. ethanol industry, the farmers who support us, and our industry’s partners in Canada and Mexico. We thank President Trump and Congress for getting this done.”
Cooper said that, in 2019, Canada ranked second for ethanol exports from the United States, purchasing an estimated 22 percent of U.S. ethanol exports, and ranked in the Top 10 for distillers grains. Canada has imported more ethanol from the United States since 2012 than any other country in the world.
Mexico was the top export market for U.S. distillers grains in 2019, importing 19 percent of all U.S. exports, and ranked in the Top 10 for ethanol exports.
WASHINGTON, DC– The U.S. Senate Thursday overwhelmingly approved the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, which, once implemented, will provide much-needed certainty for U.S. pork producers.
“Ratification of USMCA has been a top priority for the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), and we thank members of the Senate who supported this critical trade deal,” said NPPC President David Herring, a hog farmer from Lillington, N.C. “USMCA provides U.S. pork producers with certainty in two of our largest export markets. It received strong support in both chambers of Congress, and we look forward to seeing President Trump sign it into law.”
In 2018, Canada and Mexico took more than 40 percent of the pork that was exported from the United States and a similar volume is expected in 2019. U.S. pork exports to Canada and Mexico support 16,000 U.S. jobs.
“We also appreciate the administration’s work to establish a phase-one trade agreement with China,” added Herring. “We urge China to eliminate all restrictions on U.S. pork exports at a time when they are struggling with food price inflation and need reliable, affordable sources of pork. Doing so would more than double annual U.S. pork sales, generate 184,000 new American jobs and reduce the overall trade deficit with China by nearly six percent, all within the next decade.”
SIOUX FALLS, SD– The South Dakota Corn Growers Association hailed Thursday’s U.S. Senate passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a big win for agriculture.
“We’ve been looking forward to congressional passage for a long time as the USMCA has been one of our legislative priorities. Mexico and Canada are two vital trade partners and this agreement will help us grow our strong relationships,” SDCGA President Doug Noem said. “Coming on the heels of the signing of the first phase of a U.S.-China deal, this makes two wins in two days for free trade.”
The agreement will provide farmers with certainty that they can continue selling their products to the United States’ two largest agricultural export markets – vitally important at a time when the agricultural economy has slumped.
“It’s great to see bipartisanship in Congress on this deal and we appreciate the strong support and efforts of John Thune and Mike Rounds in the Senate and Dusty Johnson in the House,” Noem added. “We also want to thank the many farmers for their grassroots efforts in supporting this agreement.”