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USDA official is hopeful USMCA will be ratified soon

Ag groups continue to call on Congress to ratify the US Mexico Canada Agreement and a USDA official says he’s hopeful it will happen soon.

Jason Hafemeister is the secretary’s trade counsel at the USDA.  

“In Washington there’s a lot of people working around the clock on this so that’s always a good sign that they’re still fighting to make it happen,” he says.

He tells Brownfield the agreement would provide the ag industry with much needed certainty.

“Mexico and Canada are our top two markets,” he says. “Without the USMCA there’s a chance that we might lose that preferred status and that’s not a position we want to be in- we need to keep our top two markets open to our products.”

Hafemeister spoke to Brownfield at the Midwest Pork Conference.