Insiders Fear TPP Could Really Hurt U.S. Agriculture

The TPP, minus the U.S., will take effect by the end of this year, after Australia last week became the sixth of the 11 remaining nations to ratify the trade deal.  The inevitable is happening after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from TPP soon after taking office.  National Cattlemen’s Kent Bacus said that means graduated market losses for U.S. beef in the nearly $2 Billion Japan market.

“Once that’s implemented, you’ll have New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico that are all on the same schedule as Australia, and so, from there, you’ll see that accelerated decline in the tariff.”

Japan has agreed to bilateral talks with the U.S., offering the same benefits as TPP, but how quickly tariff rates fall is key.

“As tariffs are being ratcheted down, on products coming into Japan from those countries, we are already falling behind," said former USDA trade adviser in the Bill Clinton Administration, Paul Drazek.  'So, yeah, I think we’d want to go to Japan, and say we need a tariff reduction schedule that allows us to catch up with our competitors.”

There’s still the possibility the US could reenter TPP, especially if China fails to resolve trade disputes with D.C.

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