U.S. farm lobby turns up
heat on Trump team as NAFTA talks near
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[July 14, 2017]
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With talks to
renegotiate the NAFTA trade pact just weeks away, U.S. farm groups and
lawmakers from rural states are intensifying lobbying of President
Donald Trump's administration with one central message: leave farming
out of it.
Trump blames the North American Free Trade Agreement - the "worst trade
deal ever" in his words - for millions of lost manufacturing jobs and
promises to tilt it in America's favor.
But for U.S. farmers the 23-year old pact secures access to stable,
lucrative markets in Mexico and Canada that now account for over a
quarter of U.S. farm exports. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2tNMtlc)
Now they fear this access could become a bargaining chip in efforts to
get a better deal for U.S. manufacturers.
"Perhaps some other sectors of our economy are given better terms and in
exchange for that agriculture tariffs would be reintroduced," said Joe
Schuele, a spokesman for the U.S. Meat Export Federation in Denver,
Colorado.

Another concern is that the mere uncertainty of open-ended trade talks
could drive Mexico to alternative suppliers of grains, dairy products,
beef and pork.
Mexico became even more crucial after Trump's pullout from a vast
Pacific Rim trade pact negotiated under Barack Obama dashed farmers'
hopes of free access to more markets.
Next week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is due to outline
the administration's goals for the NAFTA talks to Congress and the farm
lobby has turned up the heat in the past weeks to ensure that its
interests will make Lighthizer's list.
Operating under the umbrella of the U.S. Food and Agriculture Dialogue
for Trade, more than 130 commodity groups and agribusiness giants since
Trump's inauguration have been bombarding the new administration with
phone calls and letters, public comments to USTR and face-to-face
meetings with top officials who have Trump's ear.
"Our first ask is to do no harm," said Cassandra Kuball, the head of the
umbrella group.
Lobbyists said that Lighthizer, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross have been receptive, but the wild card is
how Trump ultimately will come down on the talks. They also wonder what
concessions Mexico will seek from Washington in the talks due to start
in mid-August.
Among the groups involved are the American Soybean Association, Corn
Refiners Association and National Grain and Feed Association and firms
such as Land O'Lakes, Inc., Tyson Foods<TSN.N>, Inc., Louis Dreyfus
Company North America, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and others.

For example, U.S. cotton producers, marketers and shippers in mid-June
warned the Trump administration that any weakening of NAFTA "would
threaten the health of the U.S. industry and the jobs of the 125,000
Americans employed by it."
QUADRUPLING EXPORTS
Annual U.S. farm exports to Mexico have grown from about $4 billion in
1994, when NAFTA began, to an estimated $18.5 billion this year. With
Canada included, that number is forecast to reach $40 billion,
quadrupling under NAFTA.
Republican lawmakers from rural states that have backed Trump in the
2016 election have sought to leverage their political clout to press
farmers' case at a time when they struggle with low crop prices.
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U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) speaks at the IAFF Legislative
Conference and Presidential Forum in Washington, DC, U.S. on March
9, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Pat Roberts, Republican senator from Kansas, who chairs the Senate Agriculture
Committee, said he used an unexpected invitation for a private White House
meeting with Trump to plug in agriculture's cause in NAFTA and beyond.
"He (Trump) wanted to know what was happening in farmland," Roberts said. "I
told him we went through a very rough patch and if we did not have a strong,
robust, predictable trade policy, it's going to make life much more difficult in
farm country," Roberts said of the 45-minute meeting in late June.
In May, 18 Republican senators, mainly from pro-Trump farming states, wrote the
administration about the "tremendous growth" in U.S. trade with Mexico and
Canada as a result of NAFTA.
"Efforts to abandon the agreement or impose unnecessary restrictions on trade
with our North American partners will have devastating economic consequences,"
they warned.
Trump's pledges to crack down on immigration and calls for a wall along the
border with Mexico also vex farm state lawmakers.
"What I really need is a good, solid immigration system,” South Dakota
Republican Senator Mike Rounds said. Given his state's low unemployment rate of
just around 2.8 percent, farmers and ranchers need better access to legal
foreign labor, he said.
STORM OVER SUNNY SLOPE
Agriculture Secretary Perdue got a taste of farmers' angst when met cattle
ranchers in Nebraska on May 20. The event was held shortly after Washington
agreed with China to resume beef exports, but some 60 ranchers who gathered at
U.S. Senator Deb Fischer's Sunny Slope Ranch quickly turned to NAFTA.

"If the president wants to renegotiate that agreement with our neighbors and
partners in Mexico and Canada please leave the ag portion of that discussion
out," said Pete McClymont, executive vice president of Nebraska Cattlemen,
summarizing the discussion.
While lobbying in Washington, some Republican lawmakers have also met with
Mexico's ambassador and U.S. farming representatives traveled south to assure
their partners unsettled by Trump's "America First" mantra.
"The common comment is: 'why are you here? The problem is not with us. The
problem is in Washington. Why are you talking to us?'" said Tom Sleight,
president and CEO of the U.S. Grains Council. "The new normal is that feed
buyers, millers, grain buyers are actively looking at alternative sources," he
said.
It will take months to find out how effective the lobbying was. Meantime, some
are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Daryl Haack, a corn and soybean farmer from Primghar in northwest Iowa, like
others fears retaliation from either Canada or Mexico, but is optimistic it will
not come to that.
"I think President Trump is a negotiator," he said. "I think he runs bluffs. A
lot of negotiators will do that."
(Reporting By Richard Cowan, Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub, Karl Plume
and Theopolis Waters in Chicago; Editing by Caren Bohan and Tomasz Janowski)
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