Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 11/6/15


The Obama administration on Thursday announced that beginning Jan. 1 it would suspend benefits to South African agricultural products under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for failure to meet the eligibility requirements of the AGOA.

South Africa gets duty-free access to the U.S. market for dozens of its products under AGOA and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). In 2014, it shipped $1.7 billion of goods to the United States under AGOA and $1.3 billion under the GSP program. The administration’s action is focused on the AGOA program.

According to a U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) press release, Obama determined that South Africa is not making continual progress towards eliminating barriers to U.S. trade and investment, including the importation of U.S. chicken.

Obama said he intends to take action 60 days after the notification to suspend benefits to the agricultural sector, unless South Africa meets certain benchmarks to eliminate barriers to U.S. poultry, pork and beef.  The determination is the product of an "out-of-cycle" review of South Africa that was mandated by Congress in Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015.

"This should send a clear message to South Africa and their poultry industry that they will not be given a 'Get out of jail free' card every time AGOA rounds the turn to pass 'Go.'  It makes no sense for the United States to give special preferences to countries that treat our trade unfairly," National Chicken Council President Mike Brown said in a news release.

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) also hailed the announcement, as it has been urging the administration to withdraw or limit trade benefits for South Africa because of that country’s reluctance to provide market access to American pork, beef and chicken.

“South Africa has been willing to use U.S. preferential trade programs but is unwilling to extend even customary equitable treatment to imports of pork from the United States,” NPPC President Ron Prestage said in a news release. “The U.S. is the top global exporter of pork, shipping it to more than 100 nations every year. But because of non-science-based restrictions that don’t pass the red face test, we can’t ship pork to South Africa.”

Despite the tariff-free treatment of its products shipped to the United States, South Africa enforces import restrictions on American pork to prevent diseases for which there are negligible risks of transmission from American pork products. The South African Ministry of Agriculture restricts pork because of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), for example, even though there is no documented scientific case of PRRS being transmitted to domestic livestock through imported pork, the NPPC has argued.

“We are tired of watching South Africa accept pork from our key global competitors in Brazil, Canada and the EU while rejecting U.S. pork,” Prestage added.

Key deadline missed
“It is unfortunate that this action must be taken, but South Africa has repeatedly failed to implement the deal reached this summer and missed a key deadline last month to finalize the trade protocol and health certificate for U.S. poultry,” according to a statement released by senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). “South Africa does not deserve to receive benefits under AGOA as long as they refuse to drop unfair trade policies that have effectively slammed the door on American chicken imports for over a decade. There is still time to address these issues, and we hope the President's action today spurs South Africa to open their market to American poultry immediately.”

Coons and Isakson are the co-chairs of the Senate Chicken Caucus, of which Carper and Perdue are members. Both Delaware and Georgia have large poultry industries and are major exporters of poultry.

On June 8, 2015, a settlement was reached in the longstanding poultry dispute between the United States and South Africa, after negotiations in Paris led by the USTR, the Department of State, U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard and industry trade experts.

The agreement was welcome news for the industry, but since the settlement was reached, South Africa has not completely fulfilled the obligations agreed to in Paris, including the commitment to resolve sanitary barriers to poultry hindering the successful implementation of the agreement.

In September, Senators Coons and Isakson called on South African President Jacob Zuma to act quickly to address the unresolved issues in the agreement. South Africa agreed to finalize both a trade protocol for avian influenza and a health certificate for U.S. poultry by Oct. 15th, although they remain unresolved.

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