Panel Examines Key Trade Issues at Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting

More than 700 cattle producers and other beef industry leaders gathered in Denver last week for the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting, which featured a panel discussion on several key trade issues that could greatly affect the future success of U.S. beef in international markets.

U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Senior Vice President for Trade Access Thad Lively was joined on the panel by Kent Bacus, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association director of international trade, and Bill Westman, senior vice president of international affairs for the North American Meat Institute. The panel was moderated by broadcaster Ron Hays, director of farm programming for Radio Oklahoma Network.

Lively’s comments on the importance of ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are included in the attached audio report. He also discusses the slow rate of progress in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the U.S. and the European Union, which may have hit an additional obstacle when voters in the United Kingdom recently opted to leave the EU.


TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: The cattle industry summer meeting in Denver featured a panel discussion on key trade issues affecting U.S. beef exports. U.S. Meat Export Federation Senior Vice President for Trade Access Thad Lively was one of the panelist. His comments on the Trans Pacific Partnership are in this USMEF report.

Thad Lively: I personally never thought we’d be in a position to have a trade negotiation that will permit us to bring down our tariffs on product going into Japan. That just felt like something that would never happen. And because of TPP, it has happened, and our government has done a very good job of negotiating beef access to Japan. We’re going to be looking at a market that is already our highest value market, it’s got huge upside potential for growth – and that tax that every pound of beef pays going into the market, you drop that from where it is today, at 38½ percent of the value of the product down to 9 percent, over 15 years, that’s going to make a huge difference. TPP is something that we drove to its conclusion at the negotiating stage. If the other 11 countries realize that this whole thing is going to fall apart, with all the political capital they have invested, etc., because the United States has an election, that sends the wrong message I think out to the world. So, bottom line, we’ll be left behind.

Joe Schuele: Lively was less optimistic about completing negotiations on a trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union, especially after last month’s Brexit vote in the United Kingdom.

Thad Lively: From what we’re hearing really on the hard parts, very little progress has actually been made. The effect of Brexit is that now a lot of the people in the European commission who have to negotiate these deals, their attention is now going to be turned to how do we unwind this agreement with the UK, so the odds of this happening already were very low and Brexit, if anything, pushed them a little lower.

Joe Schuele: For more on the trade panel and other key issues, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Joe Schuele.