Working on Trade Dispute

Working on Trade Dispute. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

The U-S-Mexico trucking dispute is still unresolved, despite talks in Mexico between Presidents Obama and Felipe Calderon...which is not good for U-S agriculture. Obama told Calderon, he’s working with U-S lawmakers to resolve their concerns over Mexican truck safety…though some NAFTA backers argue U-S truckers and their unions don’t want the competition. But the longer the spat goes on, the greater the fear Mexico will shift its list of U-S goods targeted for retaliatory tariffs since March…when Obama signed a bill ending a U-S pilot program for Mexican trucks. American Farm Bureau’s Chris Garza

GARZA: We’ve got $2.4 billion dollars worth of retaliation on both agricultural and non-agricultural products. About $900 million of that is on agriculture products and the longer that this festers obviously the more trade is going to be cut off in those products and will obviously have a negative impact on those industries.

Mexico’s retaliation list now includes fresh and processed, fruits, vegetables, nuts and Christmas trees…but could be shifted to more Midwestern crops, including corn, soybeans, pork and beef.

GARZA: When this issue first came about and we were working this issue we told members of Congress that Mexico would retaliate and they didn’t believe it and Mexico retaliated and now the Mexicans have threatened that they will rotate this list if they don’t see resolution to this. Again, members of Congress don’t believe it but we have definitely been talking with the Mexicans about this and they are looking at their various options.

Garza says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will have to come up with an acceptable solution. But he can’t do so without Congress.

GARZA: But Secretary LaHood will have to work with members of Congress in order to make sure there is support from Congress given that Congress was the body that removed the funding for this program. Yes, this issue is within the realm of the administration but there is no way that they are going to be able to move forward unless they have Congressional support on this.
And with a majority Democrats critical of NAFTA, a solution could remain elusive…even as AFB argues under NAFTA, U-S ag enjoyed a 5-billion dollar trade surplus with Mexico last year.

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