September 30, 2019

US National Chicken Council welcomes signing of US-Japan trade deal

The United States and Japan have outlined initial details of a trade deal on September 25 as the countries work on details of a broader agreement in the coming months, the National Chicken Council (NCC, US) announced.

Under the agreement, frozen US poultry will be among the agricultural products that will benefit from staged tariff elimination.

"Under the US-Japan Trade Agreement, frozen chicken products will receive favorable tariff reductions enabling our products to compete more effectively with those countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership," said NCC president Mike Brown.

"While final details regarding agriculture still need to be worked out, today's signing is welcome news and we would like to thank President (Donald) Trump, Secretary ( of Agriculture) Sonny Perdue and (US Trade Representative) Robert Lighthizer for their work negotiating trade deals that stand to benefit US chicken."

According to USDA, US chicken exports to Japan in 2018 were 19,265 tonnes valued at US$32.5 million. Fully removing tariffs would stand to benefit the US industry and lead to increased exports of US chicken products.

- NCC