July 1, 2011

US pork council wants FTAs approved before August

The US National Pork Producers Council urged lawmakers in both houses to approve the three pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea before Congress' August recess.

This was after Wednesday's (Jun 29) announcement that the Senate Finance Committee will hold a 'mock' markup of the said deals.

 "It is imperative that the agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea be approved before Congress takes its month-long break," said Doug Wolf, NPPC president and a pork producer from Lancaster, Wis. "US pork producers need new and expanded market access to remain competitive in the global marketplace. And the way to get that is through free trade agreements."

For the US pork industry, the deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea would add more than US$11 to the price producers receive for each hog and generate more than 10,000 jobs, according to Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.

"We need to implement these FTAs now," Wolf said, "because while these deals have languished for more than three years, our competitors have negotiated their own trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, and the US has lost market share in those countries."

In fact, the EU's trade agreement with South Korea goes into effect July 1, and Colombia and Panama are nearing completion on deals with Canada.

Iowa State's Hayes has estimated that the US pork industry would be out of all three markets in 10 years if the US fails to implement the FTAs and Colombia, Panama and South Korea move forward on trade deals with other nations. The US would lose thousands of jobs under such a scenario.

Exports are vital to the US pork industry, which last year shipped nearly US$4.8 billion of pork, an amount that added about US$56 to the price producers received for each hog marketed.