Manitoba’s Minister of Agriculture says delegates who attended the 2018 Legislative Agriculture Chairs Summit are fully onside in their support for maintaining the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Early this month representatives of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico gathered in Kansas City as State Agriculture and Rural Leaders hosted the 2018 Legislative Agriculture Chairs Summit.
Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ralph Eichler, who represented Manitoba at the summit, told reporters gathered yesterday for Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon delegates were unified in their support for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
I can tell you that if NAFTA goes south on us in any way it won’t be because of agriculture. Agriculture has been very clear about their support. They were there for us during BSE, they were there for us when we had COOL, they’re there for us now under trade. They respect Canada. They understand that trade has to be both ways. We’re very clear in our position. We passed a resolution calling on President Trump to not only renew but modernize NAFTA and also we sent that resolution to the Prime Minister and to every state and to every province. We come out of there unified as an organization. We realize there are some concerns over supply management but none that would be impairment to moving forward with NAFTA.
I feel very strongly that we’re going to be just fine. Certainly we feel that we’re in the right place at the right time and making sure that trade is fair. That’s the key in all of this. There’s no winners and no losers. We’re all in this together.
~ Ralph Eichler, Manitoba Agriculture Minister
Eichler notes he is particularly impressed with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue who is very pro-trade and his Deputy Agriculture Secretary is also pro-trade. He believes we have all of the right people in our camp to ensure that we do get it right and, he stresses, he doesn’t believe agriculture will be the one that causes NAFTA to fail.
