The American wheat industry is in the spotlight this week in Cancun, Mexico as the U.S. Wheat Associates hosts its Mexican Wheat Trade Conference.  U.S. Wheat chairman Chris Kolstad, said Mexico continues to be a priority.

 

“Mexico has been a good friend of ours, for a lot of years, and they are our southern border friend and they are one of our top five importers of U.S. wheat, so a very important market for us.”

 

Kolstad said there’s good reason why checkoff dollars that the other farmers invest are used to grow important export markets like Mexico.

 

“Well the export markets are very important to the United States.  We grow approximately 50 million metric tons a year of wheat, and over half of that has to be exported and with over 95% of the world’s consumers living outside of our borders we have to get to these other countries and sell our wheat.  If we only sell to our domestic markets, the prices are going to just go down, down, down, and we don’t need that.”

 

A big factor he noted in continuing this important trading relationship is finalizing the USMCA which has hit another speed bump after President Trump announced his intention to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican imports because of illegal immigration.

 

 

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