USMCA, China and Japan highlight trade talk at Minn. Ag Expo

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) — Much like last year, a hot topic at the Minnesota Agriculture Expo this year has been focused on international trade, but after 365 days of work, the United States started coming to terms on agreements and hopes are that momentum continues in 2020.

Trade deals, such as the USMCA trade agreement and China talks, were headlines for most of 2019 as trade talks between the U.S. and China, along with Mexico and Canada, took place throughout the year.

“Throughout the whole year we worked on this stuff and it didn’t come to fruition until the end of ’19, beginning of ’20, so it’s just like a crop, so even though the growing season was bad or not as good as we hoped with the water, but we look at what the crop has produced now, which is two trade agreements,” said Bill Gordon, president of the American Soybean Association and a farmer in the Worthington, Minnesota, area.

Recently making strides is the USMCA trade agreement that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate last Thursday.

The revised NAFTA agreement is now sitting on President Donald Trump’s desk with some saying it could be signed by the end of this week.

“The president should be signing it any day now and when that happens, it’s important, it’s going to help us open markets with our best trading partners, but it’s also psychologically important to help us keep building momentum for these other deals,” said Rep. Jim Hagedorn.

Other deals include the trade deal with China, which also made strides last week receiving a signature from both countries on the phase-one deal.

“A lot of agricultural exports involved in that and the President and his team said we’re going to hold onto these tariffs, keep them on China because we want to get to phase two with them,” Hagedorn added.

Another trade deal that is making waves but didn’t quite catch headlines is the deal made with Japan, allowing both countries to either reduce or remove tariffs and is currently posing as a win for beef producers.

The momentum continues with new trade talk with India as Hagedorn said President Trump plans to visit the country.

“They used to export soybeans and now they’re importing soybeans, we have some biosecurity issues and some non-tariff barriers to work through, but that’s where the trade agreements come in,” Gordon continued.

Hagedorn said there are also plans to make a deal with Great Britain, as they’ve announced their departure from the European Union.

The White House says that President Trump is expected to sign the USCMA agreement on Wednesday, Jan. 29.

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