WTO Issues

Another round of negotiations recently finished up in Canada on the Trans Pacific Partnership. American Farm Bureau trade specialist Dave Salmonsen says the U.S. is still working to eliminate tariffs on agriculture products with Japan.

SALMONSEN: They are negotiating seriously on these issues, so we expect these negotiations will at least continue through the rest of this year. There is a summit meeting that the president will be attending this fall among Asian countries where TPP will be discussed.

The sixth round of negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership also wrapped up recently. Salmonsen says negotiators continued discussions on sanitary-phytosanitary issues, hormones in beef and more, but they also discussed the broader issue.

SALMONSEN: How do you approach food safety? What is science and what is just science masquerading as a trade barrier? That's the kind of overall regulatory approach issues that also have to be addressed.

Salmonsen says an issue has come up on the trade facilitation agreement reached through the World Trade Organization last December. He says part of reaching this agreement dealt with satisfying India's demands on food stockpiling.

SALMONSEN: India has said they won't implement the trade facilitation agreement and they're making some new demands on their food stockpiling issues. So, the issues are certainly issues that can be resolved, and some of this trade facilitation agreement was going to make things easier, more efficient, help U.S. agriculture move products more cheaply around the world.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.