The House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture held a hearing Wednesday on the state of U.S. agricultural products in international markets. Ted McKinney, under secretary for trade and foreign affairs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Gregg Doud, chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, provided background and answered questions from Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA), subcommittee chairman, and other committee members on a variety of trade issues.

The topics included the negative impact of tariffs on the dairy industry, the new trade aid package for farmers, the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA), the impact of China’s agriculture policies on the United States, the future of U.S. agriculture market access worldwide and trade opportunities with Japan, the European Union and India.

Strong Support for USMCA

In their opening remarks,  McKinney and Doud expressed strong support for USMCA.

“The USMCA is a top legislative priority of the administration, just as it is a top priority of much of U.S. agriculture,” said McKinney. “It is important for Congress to pass the USMCA so American farmers can begin to benefit from the agreement.”

Doud said, “Passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is an absolute necessity for U.S. agriculture.”

Impact on Dairy

Many committee members inquired about the impact of recent trade negotiations and tariffs on dairy farmers nationwide. Rep. Johanna Hayes (D-CT) expressed concern about tariffs hurting the dairy industry, saying, “Dairy businesses are not in a position to redirect products someplace else overnight. Did your mitigation estimates consider value lost by those companies who kept exporting but paid the tariffs themselves?”

Doud said, “The best thing we can do is pass USMCA. We have $228 million in new market access into Canada for dairy.”

USMCA also was a primary focus for Rep. TJ Cox (D-CA), who asked about the future of dairy trade. “What new market opportunities for almonds and dairy can we expect to become available soon?” he asked.

“On the dairy side, we worked very hard to make progress with Canada in USMCA. The ITC (U.S. International Trade Commission) report said U.S. dairy exports to Canada will increase by $228 million. And another $51 million to Mexico,” Doud said,

For more information, contact Beth Hughes, IDFA senior director of international affairs, at bhughes@idfa.org.