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Ag’s NAFTA angst and hopes aired at hearing

House Ag Committee chairman Mike Conaway opened today’s hearing on NAFTA opportunities saying he understands the angst renegotiations have caused but says the U.S. “stands to benefit from renegotiating a deal that provides additional market access and tightens trade.”

Four of six U.S. commodity representatives told House Ag Committee members this morning that the North American Free Trade Agreement is working and that the administration should do no harm in renegotiations. They included National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president Kendall Frasier, “Quite frankly, it is difficult to improve upon duty-free unlimited access to Canada and Mexico and we are pleased to see that USTR announced its support for reciprocal duty-free access.”

Kevin Brosch is an attorney for the National Chicken Council who told lawmakers Mexico is the number one export market for U.S. broilers and turkey and Canada is second and third, “We also are one of the biggest exporters of soybeans and corn. Every time we export a six-pound chicken we are exporting 12-pounds of soybeans and corn with feathers on it.”

The U.S. Grains Council says there is a risk in tweaking the North American Free Trade Agreement for U.S. grains, especially corn.

Floyd Gaibler told the House Ag Committee (today) (Wednesday) that NAFTA is critical to the success of the U.S. grains business. But, he says Mexico has confirmed to the Grains Council that it is looking for other suppliers and the council has strong but unconfirmed evidence that Mexico will be buying corn from South America in August and September because of the political situation with the U.S.  Gaibler says the discussion about NAFTA has caused uncertainty in the market that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible, “This angst has translated into actual impacts with U.S. Corn exports down 7% since the first of the year.”

Some of the biggest calls for change came from dairy and specialty crops.  US Dairy Export council CEO Tom Vilsack, “This renegotiation needs to focus on significant tariff reduction. It needs to focus on greater transparency in the process. The Canadian government clearly manipulates, through policy and regulation, this market.”

Reggie Brown with the Florida Fruit and vegetable association, says NAFTA is NOT working for specialty crops, “We are the canary in the coal mine.” Brown says the influx of cheap Mexican produce into the US is making the already huge trade imbalance worse and is putting U.S. specialty crop growers out of business.