The Chair of Manitoba Pork says, in the event the United States rejects participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, the deal will probably fall apart.
The importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was discussed last week when a delegation representing Manitoba Pork traveled to Des Moines as part of a trade advocacy mission to meet with U.S. political leaders, leaders of U.S. farm organizations and fellow farmers in conjunction with Iowa Pork Congress 2016.
Although an agreement was finalized in October, the governments of the 12 member nations must still approve participation.
Manitoba Pork Chair George Matheson says the hope among pork producers on both sides of the border is that the deal move forward.
It’s a vast market over there of 40 percent of the world’s economy and both sides felt that it was important to be ratified. They felt that possibly in the later months following the election of the Obama administration, they call it the lame duck period. It’s a time when there’s not much to lose, that he might consider ratifying that so that would be good news.
What’s most important is that we’re all on the same page. I asked them, if the U.S. did not ratify the agreement, would the Trans-Pacific Partnership happen and they said highly unlikely. It is very important to us that number 1, in the agreement that the U.S. has, that Canadian hog producers have that the U.S. ratifies this agreement. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. It’s a wonderful opportunity to lower tariffs in a major consuming region of the world of pork.
Matheson says pork producers in both the United States and Canada are highly dependent on export markets and the member nations of the TPP represent a rapidly growing middle class that more and more are able to afford meats and higher end cuts of meats.
