Potato Commission Wants Trade Agreements

The Washington State Potato Commission in concerned what the future of trade could look like in the coming months.  President Trump has called for NAFTA to be retooled to be "more fair" for American workers and producers, but what that looks like has not been hammered out.  In addition, both Canada and Mexico have expressed a lack of interest in many of the major changes proposed by the White House.

Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the state Potato Commission says NAFTA could use a few tweaks.

“There are a couple of things that Mexico does that kind of bugs us, there are a couple of things that Canada does that kind of bug us.  So, we offered the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office some comments on those irritants but, the main message was, please don’t go backwards.  Do whatever you can to preserve those markets for us.”

Voigt, added now is the time for the White House to work our those bilateral trade agreements that have been discussed for months.

“I think it was just last week, or about a week and a half ago that Japan and the EU made an announcement that they came to terms on the general principals of what their free trade agreement is going to be.   Now, Japan is our largest market, that’s $335 million worth of potato and potato products sales.  And we’re very concerned about what the EU could do in Japan.”

Voigt added KORUS is also a large trade agreement for Northwest potato growers.

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