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U.S. to Canada: To join trade pact, remove border restrictions
Story Date: 9/26/2012
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Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 9/25/12
Canada needs to remove all border restrictions – including high tariffs – that discourage poultry imports if it wants to join another free trade agreement, according to the National Chicken Council (NCC) and USA Poultry & Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) during negotiations over Mexico’s and Canada’s participation in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
“The U.S. industry’s experience with Canada in the NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] has been, to put it mildly, much less successful than the U.S. poultry industry’s experience with Mexico,” William Roenigk, senior vice president of the National Chicken Council (NCC), said in testimony submitted Monday to the United States Trade Representative’s office.
TPP discussions initially began without either Canada or Mexico, both of whom are longstanding partners with the United States in the NAFTA.
Canada and Mexico have asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to provide advice concerning the probable economic effect of a U.S. free trade agreement with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – all of whom have already been negotiating the agreement for more than two years.
Both the NCC and USAPEEC have argued that Canada’s import restrictions have violated NAFTA rules since that agreement’s inception in 1994.
“Now Canada wants to be part of TPP negotiations,” Roenigk added. “The U.S. poultry industry’s view on this is the old Irish proverb: ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’ … Canada is free to maintain its domestic supply control system if it wishes; but it cannot maintain border restrictions on poultry if it wants to participate in a free trade arrangement such as TPP.”
For more stories, go to http://www.meatingplace.com/.
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