4 March 2010

2 minute read

North America

“International trade is critically important to the farmers, ranchers, food processors and exporters that our organisations represent. Exports of the goods we produce generate over 8,000 US jobs for every billion dollars we ship overseas. The economic benefits flow not only to rural communities but also to people working in transportation, processing and at our ports,” the organisations state in a letter to House and Senate leaders.

In an effort to reach this five-year objective, the organisations are urging Congress to move quickly to ensure the prompt passage of the pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

“It is critically important to our industries that Congress heed the President’s call to aggressively expand market access opportunities, as our competitors are doing. The president focused on the need to create new jobs. But if our best markets are lost to our competitors, US jobs will be lost not gained,” the letter states.

The organisations note that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) estimates that there will be more than 600 bilateral or regional trade agreements in place by 2010. As of the end of 2008, 230 were in force, and of those, the US was a party to only 17 of these agreements. The WTO also estimates that about 400 new agreements are either pending notification to the WTO, are being negotiated or are in the proposal stage. Of those, the US is a party only to the three pending agreements and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In the letter, the organizations also express deep concern with legislation recently introduced in the House and Senate (H.R. 3012 and S. 2821), which would require the Administration to demand the re-negotiation of all current or pending trade agreements to modify provisions to permit inclusion of certain requirements.

“We stand ready to assist the Administration and the Congress to meet this critically important goal by 2015,” the letter concludes.

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