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14 CapitalPress.com February 2, 2018 NAFTA uncertainty remains for agriculture By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press The sixth round of negoti- ations over the North Amer- ican Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, held in Mon- treal, ended on Monday with no more certainty for farmers than when they started. While U.S. Trade Repre- sentative Robert Lighthizer said in closing statements that some progress was made, he also said negotiations are pro- gressing slowly. “We owe it to our citizens, who are operating in a state of uncertainty, to move much faster,” he said. In farm country, that un- certainty and the potential for U.S. withdrawal from the agreement are major con- cerns, said Brian Kuehl, ex- ecutive director of Farmers for Free Trade, a bipartisan campaign to restore support for agricultural trade. “As we head into planting season, farmers need the con- fidence that exports to Amer- ica’s two most important ag- ricultural export markets will remain viable,” he said. While the progress made in Montreal is heartening, it’s also clear negotiations could last longer than anticipated, he said. Farmers for Free Trade held a media conference call from Montreal to speak Darci Vetter out about the importance of NAFTA and farmers’ need for certainty. NAFTA has integrated markets in North America and made the U.S., Canada and Mexico interdependent, said Darci Vetter, senior adviser for the organization and for- mer chief U.S. agriculture ne- gotiator. It has helped farmers diminish risk and reduce un- certainty, and the benefits go beyond farmers to the broader economy. There is room for improve- ment in the agreement to ease the flow of agricultural trade, such as harmonizing sanitary and phytosanitary measures, but the foundation for agricul- ture needs to be protected and negotiations need to move quickly, she said. “Frankly, time matters because uncertainty is cost- ly. The longer we go with- out having clarity about the strength of that relationship with our partners, the more we provide incentive for our partners to look elsewhere,” she said. U.S. agricultural business- es are already seeing Cana- dian and Mexican customers diversifying their purchases, she said. Time spent on NAFTA is also time away from forging new trade relations with oth- er countries, and trade agree- ments are moving forward without the U.S., she said. Exports are vital to eco- nomic development and prof- itability, and access to markets is key, said Floyd Gaibler, director of trade policy for the U.S. Grains Council and former USDA deputy under- secretary for farm and foreign agricultural services. “NAFTA is exhibit A of the benefits to U.S. agricul- ture and the U.S. economy at large,” representing nearly $1.3 trillion in total, he said. The U.S. exported more than $20 billion in agricul- tural products to Canada and nearly $18 billion to Mexico in 2016, according to USDA. It’s vital to maintain for most of U.S. agriculture NAFTA’s reciprocal, du- ty-free market access, he said. The downstream impact of withdrawal would be a loss of up to $13 billion to the farm sector, Gaibler said. “This negotiation is too important to fail, and we need to continually and collective- ly reinforce the importance of doing no harm and moderniz- ing the agreement,” he said. Soil & Plant Health • Nutrients • Water • Specialty Crops Precision Ag • Unmanned Aerial Systems Best Western Plus Caldwell Inn & Suites 908 Specht Avenue, Caldwell, ID 83605 February 9, 2018 8:30 am – 1:00 pm Cost: $20 Lunch Provided Associated Press File Loaded container trucks line up at the Port of Seattle. Other countries moving ahead with trade agree- ments is not a reaction to recent political developments in U.S. trade policy but a commitment to the benefits of free trade and years of negotiations, EU and New Zealand trade negotiators say.. Host: Olga Walsh, University of Idaho, Parma Research & Extension Center, owalsh@uidaho.edu, (208)722-6701 By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press 4-1/108 • Update of corn production and research in Idaho • High biomass sorghum • Demo on drip irrigation • Soil health • Small acreage farming • Disease diagnostics research and spore sampler •Soil sampling and on-farm research • UAV research in Idaho Expanding trade not waiting on U.S. Trade negotiators from the European Union and New Zealand say they hope the U.S., as a valued trading part- ner, will get back in the game but they are staying the course on years of trade negotiations. “We are continuing to con- clude trade deals because we believe that trade can be win- win and that everything which liberalizes further and creates new market opportunities is Transition Planning/Asset Protection Prepare for The Next Generation - Times are Changing To find out how, please join us at one of our FREE seminars. 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Brock, Attorney Offices in Kennewick & Spokane (509) 622-4707 • corey@brocklf.com Office in Davenport (509) 725-3101 • norm@brocklf.com MEET THE SPEAKERS __________________________________________ E-mail Number of Attendees: _____________________ At the Following Seminars: Moscow Dayton Kennewick Yakima Quincy •Additional seminars do not require RSVP. Corey works primarily with farm families and farm related businesses in meeting their transition and business goals. Corey has significant experience particularly with respect to LLCs, buyouts and buy-sell agreements in corporations and LLCs, structuring estate planning for the non-farm child(ren) vs. the children on the farm, mergers and acquisitions, real estate matters leases, and all general and complex estate planning/probate. Corey enjoys working with families in designing a transition plan that meets the families’ desire. Corey also assists in structuring entities for Bureau water concerns and general water law matters. Norm brings over 40 years of experience in representing hundreds of farm families throughout Eastern Washington, Idaho and Eastern Oregon. He is licensed to practice in Washington, Idaho and Oregon and primarily deals with sophisticated estate planning, farm program limitation issues for DCP / CRP and/or CSP limitations. Spokane • Kennewick • Davenport • Moses Lake Phone (509) 622-4707 • Fax (509) 622-4705 Email Corey@BrockLF.com 5-1/101 to everybody’s benefit,” said David O’Sullivan, the EU’s ambassador to the U.S. The EU has just completed an ambitious trade deal with Canada and will sign anoth- er with Japan in the next few months. Its agreements with Singapore and Vietnam will enter into force this year, and it is upgrading first-generation trade deals with Mexico and Chile, he said at the Interna- tional Dairy Forum. While he’s a believer in free trade, he’s not naive. It’s a disruptor and needs public policy to accompany it to help regions and sectors that are adversely affected, he said. “I’m not a blind advocate of free trade and nothing else. But I think if you get that right policy mix, it’s undisputable that trade makes everybody better, and that to us is a fun- damental tenet of the Europe- an Union’s international per- spective,” he said. The EU will continue down that path, and hopes the U.S. will continue to be the great partner in the future that it has been in the past, he said. New Zealand shares the same perspective on trade, said Tim Groser, New Zea- land’s ambassador to the U.S. “I think the problem is we’ve been taught too well by the United States over the last 70 years to say and do these things,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t face new challenges to the ortho- doxy that has prevailed … we’ve met these challenges,” he said. Those challenges include such things as social and en- vironmental issues, but it’s not stopping the pursuit of trade agreements, he said. “Trade agreements are going on as we try to man- age these political problems. It’s not stopping us, although these problems have to be managed in new ways enter- ing into new trade and invest- ment agreements,” he said. The Trans-Pacific Partner- ship, which the U.S. pulled out of, is highly likely to go ahead, just as the EU will go ahead with its agreement with Japan, he said. “At the same point, there may be an administration and a political willingness (in the U.S.) to get back into this game with us because all of us are your allies, your close partners and your friends. These countries that are do- ing this stuff are not anti-U.S. in any sense at all,” he said. The U.S. has to find its own way of dealing with an- ti-globalization and anti-trade sentiment, and in time it will, he said, but other countries ar- en’t stopping in their pursuit of trade agreements. “We just want you guys to sort it out,” he said.