Forums

Tariffs and the USMCA–Impacts on U.S. Agricultural Trade

The potential economic impacts of Mexican and Canadian retaliatory tariffs and the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on U.S. agricultural trade, was the focus of the Farm Foundation^® Forum on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018.

An analysis of the USMCA, commissioned by Farm Foundation, was presented by Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Global Trade Analysis (GTAP) at Purdue University. Serving as a respondent was Joe Glauber, Ph.D., a Senior Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Posted here is the analysis, How Agriculture Will Fare Under the USMCA and Retaliatory Tariffs.

An audio file of the two-hour Forum is available. The Forum was Wednesday, Oct. 31, at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

Video interviews with the panelists are available, as well as the panelists’ PowerPoint presentations.

“In the last 24 months, the landscape of global trade—including agricultural trade—has changed significantly, generating an explosion of opinions about trade actions. Too often, those discussions have not taken a broad, accurate or long-term perspective on trade impacts,” says Farm Foundation President Constance Cullman.

To help set the groundwork for civil discussions by diverse stakeholders, Farm Foundation has stepped forward to provide objective, factual educational tools on U.S. agricultural trade. “The analysis we commissioned from GTAP is the first step in what we hope to be a collection of trade resources for the nation’s food and agriculture sector, its stakeholders, the media and government officials,” Cullman continues. “It is vital that public and private leaders have access to objective, factual information on the tools of international trade, and the potential consequences of any trade actions. Informing discussions with factual, nonpartisan information has been a mainstay of Farm Foundation’s work for 85 years.”

Farm Foundation organizes these public forums to engage a full range of stakeholders in informed dialogue on food, agricultural and rural policies. Participants examine current policies, explore and analyze alternative policy proposals, and give voice to new proposals. Speakers provide brief topic summaries, with the majority of time devoted to discussion. The opinions and views expressed at Farm Foundation Forums are solely those of the speakers, and do not represent those of Farm Foundation.

The Forums fit the Farm Foundation mission as an agricultural policy institute cultivating dynamic non-partisan collaboration to meet society’s needs for food, fiber, feed and energy. Since 1933 we have connected leaders in farming, business, academia, organizations and government through proactive, rigorous debate and objective issue analysis. The Forums, which have been ongoing since February 2006, are opportunities to identify evolving issues, explore options to address those issues, and understand the potential consequences of those options.