USMEF Members Receive Detailed Outline of TPP’s Agricultural Provisions

Sharon Bomer addresses USMEF members on the agricultural provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement

On the same morning that the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was made public, USMEF members received a detailed presentation on TPP’s implications for U.S. agriculture from Sharon Bomer, assistant U.S. trade representative for agricultural affairs and commodity policy for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

For U.S. beef entering Japan, Bomer explained that the applied duty rate of 38.5 percent will be reduced to 9 percent within 16 years, with an immediate cut to 27.5 percent upon the TPP’s entry into force.

“In addition, we have agreement with Japan that whatever rate Australia gets under the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, it will not have preference over the rate the United States gets, beginning upon entry into force,” she said. “So we have parity with the Australia agreement for beef and beef products.”

For pork, Japan’s current 4.3 percent ad valorem tariff on U.S. fresh, chilled, and frozen pork cuts will receive an immediate reduction of 50 percent, with the residual duty eliminated within 11 years. The separate, specific duty, for product entering below the gate price will be immediately reduced from a current maximum charge of 482 yen/kilogram to 125 yen/kilogram, and will drop to 50 yen/kilogram by year 11. In addition, the tariffs on processed pork products will be phased out over 11 years, the tariff on ground seasoned pork – which is currently 20 percent – will be eliminated by year six, and the duties under the gate price system for ham and bacon will be phased out over 11 years.

Bomer said the U.S. meat industry will also benefit substantially from the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter of TPP, which is aimed at reducing unwarranted non-tariff trade barriers that have often slowed U.S. exports.

“All of our previous FTAs are just focused on reaffirming our WTO obligations,” she explained. “But leading up to TPP, in the interest of having a 21st century agreement, we worked closely with industry to see what more we could be doing in the SPS world. So we now have a whole new SPS chapter that builds on the WTO obligations for transparency, science, risk assessment and other areas. This is really going to be groundbreaking.”

Bomer added that some unwarranted SPS barriers were resolved while TPP was being negotiated, citing examples such as Mexico agreeing to eliminate its 30-month cattle age limit on imports of U.S. beef and Malaysia’s acceptance of fresh/frozen U.S. pork. She also noted that TPP has excellent potential for expansion, with several additional countries already expressing strong interest in joining.

Following Bomer’s presentation, staff members from USMEF’s technical services department explained current key regulatory issues facing the U.S. industry, providing several recent examples in which USMEF has worked with other industry associations and U.S. trade officials to overcome obstacles for U.S. meat exports.

USMEF’s standing committees – the Beef and Allied Industries Committee, Pork and Allied Industries Committee and Exporter Committee – also met on Thursday, along with the Feedgrain and Oilseed Caucus. We will offer more details on these committee meetings in upcoming editions of the USMEF Export Newsline.