KEEPING A CLOSE EYE ON TRADE POLICY

It’s been a busy week in global trade policy. A few of the issues we are watching and weighing in on:

The President has lifted immediately the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico. This clears a major hurdle towards ratification of the USMCA. We will now focus together with our colleagues in agriculture, on getting Congress to act.

The President has also delayed any decision on auto tariffs. The threat of these tariffs could heighten trade tension with the EU. We are hopeful this clears the way to more in depth trade discussions and allows us to focus on ending retaliatory tariffs on our agricultural exports.

Trade ties with China took a turn for the worse as the U.S. placed new tariffs on Chinese exports to the US and China retaliated in kind.

The administration is discussing a second tranche of trade mitigation aid to the agricultural sector in response to continuing trade tensions. We are not sure what this package will include but we have sent letters to the administration asking to consider aid to our industry and for this aid to include increased tonnage of commodities in food aid