Trade

By Randy Gordon, president and CEO The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Oct. 8 announced that the two finalists to become its seventh director-general are both women – Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Yoo Myung-hee of South Korea. Yoo, South Korea’s current trade minister, has spent most of her 25-year career working on trade issues, including negotiations with the United States.  She was the country’s chief negotiator  during talks that updated the Korea-U.S. (KORUS) free trade agreement, as well as the Korea-China free trade agreement.  She touts herself as being a ... Read More

According to a study from Business Roundtable, more than 40 million U.S. jobs were dependent on international trade in 2018. That number, according to the roundtable, represented one in five pre-pandemic jobs and two times as many jobs as prior to the North American Free Trade Agreement coming into force in January 1994. The study – prepared by Trade Partnership Worldwide and published Oct. 5 – analyzed the latest-available employment and trade data from 2018. According to the report, more than 647,000 jobs in agriculture, forestry and fishing were related to trade in 2018. “To meet the ... Read More

The Asia Society Policy Institute on Sept. 30 issued a 31-page report exploring four potential options under which the United States could explore reentering what now is an 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade accord. Authored by former acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, the report is a product of her visits with a dozen current and former trade officials from across the Asia-Pacific region, during which she explored whether, under what conditions, their countries would be receptive to U.S. reentry into the ... Read More

At a Sept. 28 meeting of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), WTO-member countries approved establishment of a dispute panel at the request of China to determine whether it has complied with an earlier WTO ruling in favor of the United States that successfully challenged China’s subsidies to its wheat and rice producers. China’s first request was blocked at a previous DSB meeting on Aug. 28.  In its appeal, China maintained that it has adopted measures on minimum procurement prices for wheat and rice that have brought it into compliance with the WTO ... Read More

The NGFA and 61 other U.S. agriculture stakeholders have urged the Trump administration to remain in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and for Congress to vote against any resolution that would end U.S. membership in the international trade body. In a Sept. 23 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the groups emphasized support for efforts to reform WTO rules, noting that “improvement is needed” to hold WTO members accountable and improve the organizations’ governance, including the selection of a new director-general. WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo stepped down from ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Vice President of Economics and Government Relations A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel on Sept. 15 released a report detailing its findings in favor of China in its case against $200 billion in tariffs first levied by the United States on Chinese imports in 2018. This is the first time the WTO has ruled against tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. However, the ruling won’t have any immediate practical consequences because the United States is expected to appeal the decision and the WTO’s appellate body is unable the function anyway – as the United States has ... Read More

The U.S. ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, announced Sept. 14 that he would step down from his post in early October. After he returns from Beijing to his home state of Iowa, where he served six terms as governor, Branstad is expected to hit the campaign trail for President Trump leading up to November election. When appointed as ambassador in 2016, Branstad was expected to leverage his decades-long relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But tensions over trade disputes and the coronavirus pandemic have defined the U.S.-China relationship over the last few years.  In a ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media Industry associations that represent the global trade of plant-based agricultural products called on governments to support the adoption of a digital transmission system for phytosanitary certificates, known as “ePhyto,” to facilitate international agricultural trade. In a Sept. 9 press release, the Industry Advisory Group (IAG) of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) ePhyto Solution, which includes the International Grain Trade Coalition of which NGFA is a member, said that ePhyto is a “globally uniform ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Vice President of Economics and Government Relations The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and U.S. Department of Commerce jointly announced on Sept. 1 their plan to address imports of seasonal and perishable fruits and vegetables. The main pillar of the plan is for the U.S. International Trade Commission to initiate a Section 201 global safeguard investigation to determine the extent to which increased imports of blueberries have caused serious injury to domestic blueberry growers. A Section 201 investigation for ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Vice President of Economics and Government Relations In a new Aug. 26 report examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on world agricultural trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said agricultural trade has fared better than other sectors. The report notes that initial measures focused on guaranteeing the immediate availability of food have been followed by a second phase of policies seeking to mend broken supply chains and help producers cope with the “new normal” situation. While overall merchandise trade fell sharply in the first half of 2020, agricultural and ... Read More