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AFBF’s Duvall remains concerned about NAFTA, trade

American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall remains concerned about the future of U.S. trade deals.

Duvall thinks President Trump and his team are really driving hard bargains, saying businessmen do that, but Farm Bureau is continuing to urge the administration to do no harm.  “As far as NAFTA and as far as our opinion of it is NAFTA’s been very good for American agriculture.  Now, there’s some weak spots in it, so we’d like to talk about it being a modernization of a good trade treaty rather than renegotiating it.”

Duvall says the U.S. has gone from 8 billion to 38 billion dollars worth of trade under NAFTA.  He does say tough negotiations lie ahead in some areas.  “We need to increase our trade of dairy products into Canada.  We need to deal with some of the issues around their quota system and how to offset some of our dairy industry here, and then of course in certain areas of the country, especially in Florida, we have a dumping situation of fruits and vegetables that really kills the industry.”

Duvall told farmers and reporters overall, he is pleased with some of the regulatory changes that have happened under the Trump administration including putting a stop to WOTUS.