The new administration under President-Elect Barack Obama should be prepared to try a new approach to improving trade relations with the United States' key export markets, U.S. Meat Export Federation President and CEO Philip Seng said this week.

Addressing attendees at USMEF's annual Strategic Planning Conference in Tucson, Ariz., Seng advised the new administration to consider several steps:
• Create a new sub-cabinet level position with responsibility for all trade-related issues. This new point person on trade would be responsible for driving USDA's export agenda through trade negotiations and export promotion programs, and for ensuring that domestic marketing standards meet the expectations of export customers.
• Redefine the industry-government partnership. Seng noted that in the effort to reopen international markets following the BSE announcement, USDA could have benefited from closer consultation with its cooperators on the workability of various negotiating options.
• Try a new approach to funding export market development. Seng suggested that the agriculture export initiative would benefit from a mechanism for collecting and administering funds that would be used solely for developing international markets. Agriculture export concerns would remit these funds to the USDA, which would allocate them in combination with USDA funds to the export industry groups based on each industry sector's contribution to the value of agricultural exports and the agricultural trade balance.
• Ensure that political appointments are based on credentials. Many of the problems that the United States has encountered in reopening markets to U.S. exports, and in working with trade partners in general, can be directly attributed to the lack of international experience of political appointees, Seng said. He emphasized that expertise and cultural sensitivity would enhance the effectiveness of U.S. negotiators.