Implementation of the Columbia Trade Promotion Agreement

Implementation of the Columbia Trade Promotion Agreement

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.
 
Earlier this week, USDA announced that the Columbia Free Trade Agreement was officially implemented. It had been signed in 2006. The pact immediately eliminated all tariffs on U.S. wheat imports to Colombia and ended a significant tariff disadvantage U.S. farmers had faced compared to Canadian and Argentine wheat imports there.

This is big and exciting news to the wheat industry says US Wheat Associates Chairman Randy Suess.

Suess: “It recaptured a market were we had a 85 percent market share and went to zero because Canada had signed a Free Trade Agreement with Columbia and ours was still pending. So this opens the door back up to us and allows us to pick up that market share again.”

Suess says that this implementation is not only good news for US ag producers, but for Columbia as well.

Seuss: “The biggest thing is that we always look at how this affects US farmers but this is a win-wins situation because the Columbian government also benefits because it creates competition. Of course any time you have competition, that keeps the price of wheat down for them. It opens back up the market for us but it creates that competition and gives them that option of whether to buy wheat from the U.S. or Canada.”

Colombia eliminated duties on wheat, barley, soybeans, soybean meal and flour, high-quality beef, bacon, almost all fruit and vegetable products, peanuts, whey, cotton, and the vast majority of processed products.

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.