Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 4/28/14


The United States and Japan and the United States reached a basic agreement on Friday in Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations that could provide progress in red meat trade, but so far there is no official word on that crucial portion.

Beef and pork were among key five categories of agricultural products involved in the talks. Details were not released, but a report by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun cited sources close to the negotiations as saying the two sides agreed to substantially reduced tariffs on U.S. beef exports to Japan — to “9 percent or more” from the existing 38.5 percent over the course of 20 years. And an Obama administration official’s comments to reporters, though less specific, also suggested progress on beef and pork trade.

Japan will maintain its current gate-price system to protect domestic farmers. The system imposes tariffs based on price differences between standard domestic pork and imported pork. In exchange, Tokyo is expected to slash its standard domestic price at Washington’s request, according to Yomiuru Shimbun.

Meanwhile, a senior administration official quoted aboard Air Force One, according to a White House press briefing, hinted at progress on beef and pork.

“[T]he overall outcome was in a number of the products we were able to identify what the path is going to be towards the ultimate resolution,” the official said. “When I say that it means there are various factors that go into market access agreement — the length of time over which a market access barrier might be reduced, which barriers are eliminated and which barriers are reduced and what the relationship is between them, how the market access is structured.  And we went through each one of these products and oftentimes line by line of the tariffs to determine what was the most robust outcome in terms of opening markets for U.S. exports, and to do so in a way where we could secure Japan’s agreement.”

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