Ag groups call for consistent U.S./EU FTA

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2012 – A coalition of 40 food and agricultural organizations, including the National Pork Producers Council, has sent a letter to the Obama administration and Congress, regarding a proposed free trade-agreement between the United States and the European Union. The concern is that it might fall short of long-established U.S. objectives for trade pacts.

Some of the groups joining NPPC include the American Meat Institute, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Corn Growers and the U.S. Meat Export Federation.  

“Some non-agricultural members of the business community have suggested that a U.S./EU FTA negotiation should not be pursued as a ‘single undertaking’ with success in one area dependent on success in all the others,” says R.C. Hunt, NPPC president, a Wilson, N.C., pork producer. “The agriculture community, however, believes that, rather than creating a high-standard, 21^st Century trade agreement that is central to the administration’s trade policy efforts, approaches other than a single undertaking would assure the perpetuation of trade barriers to many U.S. products and sectors, including agriculture.”

As outlined in the letter, the “negotiating pace” for sensitive products, such as those involving food and agriculture, would be “that of a snail.” Furthermore, such directives are not workable in today’s trade arena.    

“The EU’s free-trade deals with other countries do not meet the high standards of U.S. trade agreements,” adds Nicholas Giordano, NPPC’s vice president and counsel for international affairs, “and we doubt that the EU would ever agree to open its market to agricultural commodities unless it was obliged to do so as part of a comprehensive trade agreement.”

The EU is particularly protective of its food and agriculture markets and producers.

Had the United States embarked on any of its existing FTAs using the approach that some have suggested for an EU FTA, many of today’s comprehensive agreements would not be in place, the coalition letter states. What’s more, the administration would not have the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks to point to as the model for all future agreements.

“Our FTAs with Korea, Colombia, Panama, the CAFTA countries, Australia, Chile and such, are comprehensive in scope and were negotiated based on a single undertaking. Likewise, the TPP negotiations are comprehensive in scope and will be based on a single undertaking,” Giordano points out. “That is the standard to which we are holding the TPP candidate countries of Canada, Japan and Mexico; to hold the EU to a lower standard than the rest of the world makes no sense, and is very dangerous for U.S. agriculture and other sensitive sectors.”

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