National Potato Council Reacts to USMCA Pt 2
I’m Bob Larson. Exciting times for agriculture Wednesday as President Trump signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, bringing the updated NAFTA across the finish line.
National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles says it will take retaliatory tariffs off the table with two of our top three export markets, but it also sends a message …
QUARLES … “The other big thing, Bob, is this, in getting USMCA to the finish line, it tells all the other countries that we’re negotiating with that the U.S. is serious about, not only, sitting down and negotiating, but getting things approved and getting back to business.”
And, Quarles says closing out the USMCA should give the U.S. a little trade talk confidence moving forward …
QUARLES … “Exactly! It really is. And, you see that just over the past couple of months, you’ve got USMCA was approved overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate. And, the House and the Senate are not agreeing on much of anything right now, but they were able to do it on this trade agreement so that’s really important.”
He says USMCA just adds to our list of good news recently …
QUARLES … “You’ve also had the Japan ratification. You had the China Phase-One announcement. So, a couple of years ago there was a lot of negativity and a lot of volatility around the trade environment. Now, that’s really turned the corner.”
Listen tomorrow for more on USMCA and the exciting detail for potatoes.
