The U.S. pork industry wants to see a return of the Generalized System of Preferences trade program, which expired in 2020, seeing it as key to gaining new access to markets in countries like Thailand and the Philippines.
At a hearing Wednesday before the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, Minnesota farmer and former National Pork Producers Council President Randy Spronk said NPPC “strongly supports the renewal of GSP, as it is a valuable program that will give U.S. trade negotiators another tool to persuade countries to eliminate trade restrictions on U.S. products.”
The expiration of GSP, a U.S. Trade Representative-administered program that gives developing countries limited tariff-free access to the U.S., removed leverage that the U.S. can use to persuade nations to drop barriers to American farm goods.
Subcommittee Chairman Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said that while it is important to debate ways to improve GSP, he supports the program.
“When Congress created the GSP program in 1974, it recognized then, as we do now, U.S. leadership on international trade and global economic development is vital,” Smith said.
One country that Spronk said may have been on the verge of removing barriers to U.S. pork because of GSP was Thailand. The country had a “de facto ban” on U.S. pork through high tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and NPPC began petitioning for its expulsion from the GSP program. The U.S. listened and suspended Thailand’s GSP eligibility in 2020. Unfortunately, said Spronk, Congress allowed the entire program to expire soon after.
If it were revived, he said, Thailand could potentially be convinced to lift its barriers, while countries that have never been in GSP could also be swayed to reform.
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“While the threat of removing GSP benefits can induce countries to improve market access conditions for U.S. pork, the possibility of being added to the eligibility list is another way to persuade countries to remove long-standing barriers,” Spronk said at the hearing. “For example, when Argentina was under consideration for GSP eligibility in 2018, the United States Department of Agriculture was able to use that leverage to finalize the development of an export certificate for U.S. pork. This removed restrictions that had previously impeded U.S. access to the Argentine market.”
One country that ag and trade representatives have been hoping would qualify to re-enter a revived GSP is India. India’s ban on U.S. pork was a major factor when the country was booted from the program before it was allowed to expire. India has since opened up its market to U.S. pork.
Spronk said Wednesday that the first shipment of post-ban U.S. pork is being prepared now for shipment to India.
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