Japanese beef producers will be hit the hardest by their nation’s agreement to reduce tariffs on U.S. food and agriculture products, according to an estimate by the government in Tokyo. The package calls for Japan to reduce or eliminate tariffs on $7.4 billion worth of U.S. ag exports beginning on Jan. 1.
The government says beef production could fall by as much as $440 million out of a total impact on the agricultural sector estimated to be as large as $1 billion. Dairy production could fall by $230 million and pork by $200 million, reported Nikkei Asian Review. It said the ruling Liberal Democratic Party intended to provide assistance to farmers and quoted the party’s parliamentary affairs chief, Hiroshi Moriyama, as saying at a party meeting over the weekend, “Determining how to address this in supplementary budgets is priority No. 1.”
The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe estimates that Japan’s gross domestic product will rise 0.8 percent as a result of trade negotiations with the Trump administration, assuming removal of a 2.4 percent U.S. tariff on cars imported from Japan.
The agricultural pact would benefit U.S. beef, pork, poultry, wheat, cheese, wine, ethanol, and other goods by putting American products on the same tariff schedule as food and ag imports from the so-called TPP-11 countries, which include Australia and Canada. Dairy products and rice were not granted the same access that Japan gave to the TPP-11, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.