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U.S. cattle groups seek relief from US-Mexico-Canada trade deal

The CEO of R-CALF USA says cattle producers need relief from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

Bill Bullard says, “The problem is is that the USMCA is the most damaging trade agreement of all of the multilateral trade agreements we’re involved with.”

Bullard tells Brownfield the USMCA works well for multinational meatpackers, processors, and importers but causes irreparable harm to America’s family farm and ranch cattle producers. “And that’s because we’re importing both beef and live cattle, and then the beef from both of those come out of these are direct substitutes for domestic beef.”

R-CALF USA and 17 other national, state, and regional producer groups sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and her Canadian and Mexican counterparts saying the USMCA severely weakened the U.S. live cattle supply chain by depriving U.S. producers of access in their own domestic beef market. “The trade imbalance between the United States and those two countries is horrendous, that we actually import two-and-a-half times more value in beef and cattle than we export to those countries.”

Bullard says U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is planning meetings with her Canadian and Mexican counterparts, and the cattle groups are asking her to take steps to prevent the influx of these large volumes of undifferentiated meat products.  Bullard says that would include country of origin labeling.