Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 11/9/16


With Donald J. Trump as the president-elect, meat analysts and lobbyists are anticipating rough seas for exports, on which a growing number of meat processors depend to thrive or even survive.

Neither candidate was in favor of the major multinational agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. On the campaign trail, Trump had said he would scrap these arrangements and seek to negotiate with individual countries to better ensure fair unilateral trade agreements.

That sets a tight deadline for the meat industry, says Colin Woodall, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA). That group’s priority, Woodall said, is to get the TPP passed in the waning weeks of the Obama administration.

“TPP is our No. 1 ask,” he said in an interview with Meatingplace. “We’re losing $400,000 a day without it.”

More favorable trade arrangements between Asia and the Oceania region mean Australia, for example, is snapping up U.S. market share in key Asian markets, he explained. Also, TPP has already been signed by all the participating countries, and simply awaits ratification by their respective governments. The Transatlantic Trade agreement still is in the midst of negotiations.

To that end, NCBA even before the election had rolled out a grassroots public relations campaign in favor of getting the treaty ratified, which will be ramped up now that the election is over, Woodall said.

“We have excess meat available and the only way to fix that is to move that product, and we can move it with trade,” he added.
NCBA also said, in a statement released by its president, Tracy Brunner, that the organization “remains committed to expanding access to foreign markets, fighting burdensome federal regulations and ensuring the continued health of our herd.

“In the coming weeks, we will continue to work with Congress to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership, defund EPA’s flawed “waters of the United States” rule” and on other priorities, the statement said.

The North American Meat Institute struck a cooperative tone overall, with Eric Mittenthal, vice president of public affairs, telling Meatingplace in an email, "Obviously, Trump has indicated he is not supportive of large trade deals, but trade is important to the economic health of the industry and we hope to work with the administration and Congress to highlight the value of trade and its overall benefit to the U.S. economy."

The National Pork Producers Council adopted a similar tone: "We are confident we can work with the Trump administration to keep American agriculture great," NPPC Director of Communications Dave Warner wrote in an email.

U.S. Meat Export Federation executives were not immediately available for comment.

Competition challenges ahead
Steiner Consulting Group analyst Altin Kalo was blunt about the implications of Trump’s election for the meat industry in today’s issue of the Daily Livestock Report: “Promises of heavy tariffs on imports, the erection of a physical barrier with one of our largest trading partners, the commitment to do away with NAFTA, no TPP, limits on free trade in order to stimulate domestic jobs and other such commitments may have a significant detrimental impact on the meat industry,” he wrote.

The effects likely would be felt especially in the pork and chicken industries, Kalo said in an email sent to Meatingplace.
“Those two industries have managed to expand rapidly in the last two decades in part because the U.S. has a cost advantage relative to other large producers but also because of the lowering of tariff and non-tariff barriers,” he added.

Much is yet unclear, of course. What Trump promised on the campaign trail could change a little, or a lot, once his administration starts to implement new policies, Kalo noted.

“The vote, however, showed that there is broad popular support, warranted or not, for limiting trade,” he added.

If such policies were to come to pass, he predicted, over time the U.S. meat industry will find it increasingly difficult to compete globally, with Brazil, Australia and other countries benefitting at the expense of U.S. producers.

“I would not want to make any predictions as to the dollar impact on the U.S. meat industry given how uncertain the commitment to such policies still is,” Kalo said, “but it is important for the new administration to recognize that without a vibrant export market the meat industry simply is not sustainable in the current configuration and will need to shrink. This eventually means fewer farms and fewer processing facilities.”

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