Pork Now Part of Mexico's Trade Retaliation List
US - The National Pork Producers Council yesterday expressed its strong disappointment with the US and Mexican governments’ actions related to allowing Mexican trucks into the United States.
17 August 2010
3 minute read
Mexico yesterday added pork to the list of US products against which it is retaliating for the failure of the United States to live up to its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement to let Mexican trucks haul goods into the United States.
“Mexico’s retaliation against US pork will have negative economic consequences for America’s pork producers,” said NPPC President Sam Carney, a producer from Adair, Iowa. “We are extremely disappointed that our top volume export market has taken this action, but we’re more disappointed that the United States is not living up to its trade obligations.
* "The retaliation puts thousands of agricultural jobs at risk, including, now, pork industry jobs, and thousands of manufacturing jobs at risk." |
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Sam Carney, NPPC President
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“That failure not only has hurt dozens of US industries economically, but it could prompt other countries to think twice about entering into trade deals with the United States,” Mr Carney added. “Our trading partners need assurance that the United States will live up to its trade obligations.”
The US Congress in early March 2009 failed to renew a pilot program that allowed a limited number of Mexican trucks to haul freight into United States beyond a 25-mile commercial zone. The Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Programme was started by the US Department of Transportation in September 2007 as a way to begin implementing the NAFTA trucking provision, which was supposed to take effect in December 1995.
In February 2001, a NAFTA dispute-settlement panel ruled that excluding Mexican trucks violated US obligations under the trade deal. The ruling gave Mexico the right to retaliate against US products, which it did in March 2009, placing higher tariffs on more than $2.4 billion of US goods. Pork was not included on that initial retaliation list.
“Mexico is a top market for all kinds of US exports, providing millions of jobs to US workers,” said Mr Carney. “The retaliation puts thousands of agricultural jobs at risk, including, now, pork industry jobs, and thousands of manufacturing jobs at risk.”
NPPC has been urging the Obama administration to work with Congress to quickly resolve the trucking issue with Mexico, which last year bought $762 million of US pork.
