For America's Pork Producers, TPP 'Biggest Commercial Opportunity Ever'

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is the “biggest commercial opportunity ever for U.S. pork producers,” said National Pork Producers Council President-elect John Weber at a press conference today on the recently concluded free trade deal.

 

“America’s pork producers strongly and unequivocally support the TPP, and we urge Congress to quickly pass it,” said Weber, a pork producer from Dysart, Iowa. “The TPP will benefit American consumers, workers, businesses, farmers and ranchers, and we’re confident it will provide enormous new market opportunities for high-quality U.S. pork products.”

 

Weber joined representatives from the American Soybean Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Corn Growers Association and the U.S. Grains Council in expressing support for the Asia-Pacific regional trade agreement, which includes the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam and accounts for nearly 40 percent of global GDP. Also participating in the press conference was Phil Karsting, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

 

“While no agreement is perfect,” Weber said, “the TPP is overwhelmingly beneficial to the United States, and members of Congress need to keep that in mind.

 

“They also should consider that our competitors are negotiating trade deals in the Asia-Pacific region that do not include the United States, so the U.S. pork industry is extremely concerned about losing market share in the fastest-growing region in the world if TPP is delayed or not implemented.”

 

Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes estimates the TPP will exponentially increase U.S. pork exports and help create more than 10,000 U.S. jobs tied to those exports.

 

Weber pointed out that the United States and the 11 other TPP nations have made it clear that the TPP is a living agreement and that, at some point, other nations, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, will become part of the deal.