We told you earlier this year about how the U.S. Department of Agriculture worked hard last year to expand trade opportunities around the world for U.S. ag producers. And those efforts paid off as global sales remained strong in spite of challenges in the trade arena throughout the year. USDA helped to break down trade barriers and provided more access to overseas markets for several commodities, including poultry and dairy to Canada through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA), as well as lamb and goat meat to Japan, beef and pork in Argentina, poultry to India and Namibia, lamb to El Salvador, beef and poultry to Morocco, eggs to South Africa, and dairy to Turkey. USDA also made sure that more than $77 million of perishable U.S. products arrived safely at their intended destinations, among those was beef to Bulgaria. And of course those efforts to bolster trade continues this year.
And while it seems we talk a lot about trade, it’s been explained many times how important trade of various U.S. products is to producers here at home. One person who realizes that is President-Elect of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), Marty Smith from Florida. He told Southeast AgNet they spend a lot of time talking trade.
Of course NCBA was pleased with the recent USDA announcement that Japan will allow products from U.S. cattle, regardless of age, to be imported into that country for the first time since 2003.
In a release, NCBA President Jennifer Houston said, “This is great news for American cattle producers, and Secretary Sonny Perdue and the Trump Administration deserve a lot of credit for helping knock down this non-tariff trade barrier in Japan. This underscores the safety of the U.S. beef herd, and it will hopefully send a signal to other Asian nations that non-science-based trade barriers like this one should be eliminated in their countries, as well. Tariff rates grab all the headlines, but non-tariff barriers are often just as important, if not more so, when it comes to determining market access. Hopefully this will help spotlight this important point and lead to more trade victories in the near future.”
For more information go to the NCBA website.