Agriculture Groups Urge Free Trade Appoval

More than 120 agriculture producer groups sent a letter Friday to President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress urging adoption and implementation of pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.

The groups warn that a delay in passing the agreements will lead to loss of market share to countries that already have agreements in place.

“It’s difficult to watch years of market development evaporate in a matter of months because we are not able to compete on the basis of price,” the letter says. “The prospect of a delay in action until the fall has come as a disappointment to the agricultural community.”

The agreements have been before the U.S. Senate for more than six months, but debate about them has been silenced because of the congressional deadlock over the national debt and deficit. The agreements are not likely to come to a vote until September.

Nicholas D. Giordano, vice president of the National Pork Producers Council, said without the trade agreements his members will be pushed out of the three markets within 10 years.

In Korea, the U.S. FTA will eliminate tariffs ranging from 22.1 percent to 25 percent, causing the U.S. to increase pork exports by $687 million annually, Giordano said at a National Foreign Trade Council luncheon. The U.S. market share will drop 3 percent annually without the implementation of the FTA.

While the U.S. FTA with South Korea languishes in the Senate, European Union exports to the Southeast Asian country jumped 16 percent in the first two weeks after its own free trade agreement took effect July 1. The EU’s pork exports increased by $10 million within the same period.

“We’re the low-cost pork supplier in the world, but you can’t compete against zero,” Giordano said, referring to the tariff-free treatment that EU pork gets in South Korea.

-- Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com.