NAFTA
MacAulay says Canada will defend its supply-management system in NAFTA talks
At a roundtable meeting, Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay assured producers that the government will defend supply management for the agricultural sector in negotiations for the new NAFTA. The United States has complained repeatedly about Canada's dairy system, which limits imports and assures milk producers of a high market price.
In NAFTA talks, U.S. is slow to spell out its proposals
If it's Monday, it must be Canada for trade officials who are in their third round of talks less than six weeks after NAFTA negotiations began on Aug. 16 with hopes of an agreement before the end of the year. The CBC, quoting an unnamed source close to negotiations, says the U.S. team is lagging when it comes to putting its ideas into writing so there can be detailed discussions.
USDA nominees give top priority to larger U.S. farm exports
The board of the Consumer Goods Forum, which includes 400 of the biggest goods companies in 70 countries, used Climate Week to call on foodmakers and retailers to standardize the "Sell by," "Use by" and "Best before" labels that confuse consumers and contribute to food waste. The industry "call to action" dovetails with a UN goal of reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030.
Trump trade tactics imperil farmers, says Glickman
Exports generate an important part of U.S. farm income, yet they are jeopardized by President Trump's decision to renegotiate NAFTA and his threats to cancel the U.S.-Korea trade pact, writes former agriculture secretary Dan Glickman in an essay in The Hill newspaper. "These two threats alone have serious potential implications for the health of American agriculture, which is so dependent on agriculture exports.
American farmers react as trade tensions flare
Once again, farmer groups expressed concern over the heated rhetoric coming out of the White House over trade agreements. The American Soybean Association and U.S. wheat groups were especially critical as a result of indications that the White House would withdraw from the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea as early as Tuesday.
Consumers and the U.S. diet have a stake in the new NAFTA
U.S. ag exports rebound from slump, tie for third-largest ever
U.S. farm exports will total $139.8 billion this fiscal year, the third-highest tally ever and ending a slump in sales that begin in 2014 following the collapse of the commodity boom, estimated the USDA in a quarterly report. In its first forecast for fiscal 2018, the USDA pegged exports at $139 billion.
Trump says it again about NAFTA: ‘may have to terminate’
Mexico and Canada are being "very difficult" in negotiations for the new NAFTA, President Trump said with the second round of talks to begin on Friday, adding in a tweet, "may have to terminate?" It was the second time since talks started that Trump has said the United States might abandon the 1994 free trade agreement among the three largest countries, and neighbors, on the continent.
Canada and Mexico yawn at Trump threat to nix NAFTA
President Trump’s new threat to terminate NAFTA, made during a rally in Phoenix, is a negotiating tactic rather than a serious possibility, said Canadian and Mexican officials. “This was always a card we knew the president would likely play . . . it may have been a bit earlier than expected,” a Canadian official told Reuters.
After starting NAFTA talks, Trump says he may terminate the pact
President Trump told a rally in Phoenix that he may have to kill NAFTA in order to get better trade terms with Canada and Mexico. “Personally, I don’t think we can make a deal,” he said, days after the first round of negotiations for the new NAFTA. “I think we’ll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point.”
Negotiators promise ‘accelerated’ NAFTA process
Canada, Mexico and the United States "are committed to an accelerated and comprehensive negotiation process" to write the new NAFTA, according to a joint statement from the three countries at the conclusion of a session in Washington. The second round of talks will be Sept. 1-5 in Mexico.
Farm groups to NAFTA negotiators: Do no harm, do no harm, do no harm
“From your perspective, would it have been better if the Trump administration had never raised the issue of renegotiating NAFTA?” The Bloomberg Radio reporter had to ask the question twice before he got an answer, maybe because it conveyed the uncomfortable, but undeniable, sentiment at Wednesday’s joint press conference by the three main farm groups from the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
As talks begin, here’s our recent NAFTA coverage
As talks between Canada, Mexico, and the United States begin on renegotiating NAFTA, here’s an archive of our recent coverage of the trade agreement in Ag Insider. (No paywall)
NAFTA’s brewing milk war
As NAFTA renegotiations get underway, dairy is shaping up as major sticking point between Canada and the United States. After Canada’s foreign affairs minister insisted on Monday that Canada will defend its tightly controlled approach to its dairy industry, the president of the National Milk Producers Federation accused her of trying to have it both ways on free trade.
On NAFTA, Mexicans will try to give Trump a ‘win’ without losing
As Mexican officials head to Washington this week to begin renegotiating NAFTA, they are balancing their specific goals with an awareness that the American president cares as much, or more, about the optics of the deal than the specifics, says the Los Angeles Times.
Few Trump detractors in Farm Belt at the six-month mark
Farmers voted overwhelmingly for President Trump last fall and they are ardent supporters to this day, according to a Farm Futures survey of 1,200 growers, as the president completed his sixth month in office. Some 49 percent gave Trump an "A" or a "B" grade on agriculture; only 10 percent, roughly the same portion who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton, gave him an "F."
Perdue: New NAFTA mantra must be ‘Do no harm to agriculture’
With negotiations for the "new NAFTA" to begin next week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says he is repeating one message to the White House: First, do no harm to agriculture. U.S. farm exports to Canada and Mexico quadrupled under the 1994 trade agreement, and U.S. farm groups fear that renegotiating the deal will disrupt their duty-free access to the border nations.
Meet the farmers who say NAFTA hasn’t helped them
Big Ag has long chanted the benefits of NAFTA to American farmers, pointing out that the free-trade deal with Mexico and Canada has quadrupled U.S. farm exports since it went into effect in 1994. “But despite the largely pro-trade drumbeat in the ag sector, there are plenty of farmers who feel otherwise,” say Kristina Johnson and Sam Fromartz in FERN’s latest story, published with NPR’s The Salt.
Migrants, trapped in ‘open-air prison’ by U.S. policy pick the mangoes we love
In 2019 President Donald Trump threatened to levy a 5 percent tariff on all Mexican goods unless the country agreed to beef up its immigration enforcement. Mexico acquiesced and deployed troops along its southern border with Guatemala, limiting the free movement of migrants. As a result, countless people have been trapped in Tapachula, a sprawling border town, in what the international press has described as an “open-air prison.”