The U.S. Department of Agriculture is focusing on a two-pronged approach to boost U.S. agricultural exports and the agricultural economy for producers. The first strategy includes focusing on reciprocal trade agreements. U.S. Trade Representative’s Office Chief Agricultural Negotiator Julie Callahan provides details on their efforts.
“Removing non-tariff barriers and also providing preferential tariff concessions for U.S. agriculture,” said Callahan.
In the case of the trade agreement with Taiwan, Callahan says, “Duty-free access, addressing the beef and pork non-tariff barriers that we at USTR have been tackling for years and years trying to break down these unnecessary non-tariff barriers that were preventing us from fully accessing their market.”
The second strategy includes “rapid-response” trade missions and Agriculture Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Luke Lindberg shares details on these efforts.
“People in these countries want to meet our farmers, guys with the dirt under their fingernails, who can tell you why their beef is different or their soybeans are raised slightly better or whatever that might be. And that’s the people they want to talk to. And so we have launched this set of programs where we’re bringing over farm groups quickly, in many cases weeks, after these agreements get locked in to expose our producers to the market and begin to build those buyer-seller relationships,” said Lindberg.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.