USDA Kicks Off Trade Mitigation Program To Ease Impact of Tariffs

Earlier this month USDA officially opened its three part trade mitigation program designed to ease the impact of the current trade disputes. The U.S. dry bean industry has felt the impact of retaliation in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, particularly from the European Union.

The mitigation program includes:

Market Facilitation Program (MFP) to providing direct payments to certain commodities;

A domestic commodity purchase program;

The Agricultural Trade Promotion Program (ATP).

The Domestic purchase program includes up to $14,200 in purchases of kidney beans and $18,000 of navy beans. Additionally, the ATP will provide $200 million to complement and expand global export promotion programs and assist commodity groups explore new and untapped export markets and market segments.

We are in the process of developing several new initiatives around the world to expand our current global export promotion programs and will be submitting our application for the ATP to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service by November 2, 2018. While we would prefer to see resolution of current trade tensions, we thank the USDA for their support.