NW Hort Council USMCA Reaction Pt 1
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. As most of us know by now, the President put pen to paper Wednesday when he signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement. Very good news for most in agriculture.
Northwest Horticultural Council President Mark Powers says it was a pretty good feeling…
POWERS … “We’re happy that it’s been signed and sealed, and still not delivered, right. Canada’s got to got through its process yet, but it provides certainty. That’s one of the key words you’re going to hear, I think, out of a lot of folks in agriculture.”
Powers says they accomplished what we NEEDED to, but frankly, the bar wasn’t that high …
POWERS … “Again, I’m going to come back to “certainty.” We had duty-free access under NAFTA, and that was preserved. And, while perhaps the threat wasn’t very high in terms of losing that duty-free access, now we know for certain that it’s there and it’s preserved.”
But, Powers says there are other takeaways …
POWERS … “The other things have to do with trade remedies. For instance, how do you settle disputes? And, our apple growers, anyway, have been on the receiving end of anti-dumping cases from both Canada and Mexico. And, the rules there still I think are favorable to settling disputes and, you know, they’re no worse than they were before. Let’s put it that way.”
And, for fruit growers, it was about tweaking or updating what was already a pretty good trade agreement in NAFTA.
Tune in tomorrow for more of the benefits within the USMCA and how the signing could be momentum for other trade deals moving forward.
