Trade

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A lot of the action going down now at the 11th World Trade Organization Ministerial in Argentina is likely happening on the sidelines as the U.S. and Brazil hash out new and old disputes over ethanol and wheat that continue to frustrate the American ag sector.

President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to pull the U.S. out of the North American Free Trade Agreement have kept the U.S. ag sector on edge for months, and farm sector leaders are expressing concern that Trump may have no intention of allowing the current NAFTA negotiations to succeed.

The World Trade Organization will convene this Sunday in Buenos Aires for its eleventh ministerial meeting and the U.S. will be taking a clear message on agriculture: The group that includes every major trading country needs to find a new path forward to improve global trade.

Canadian beef and pork exporters have long relied on their U.S. neighbors as solid trading partners, but that relationship has grown increasingly rocky during the contentious renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The uncertainty surrounding the talks and the future of U.S.-Canadian trade has the northern producers looking to Asia, and they like what they see.

Exports of malted barley – grown and processed in the U.S. – to Mexico are on the rise and the only thing that could halt that booming trend would be the collapse of the ongoing negotiations to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement.

After witnessing a presidential campaign that was big on bombast and small on concrete policy proposals, many – including ag organizations – wondered what to expect from the Trump administration’s first year in office.