PALM DESERT, Calif. — As the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement approaches its critical first six-year review on July 1, the North American produce industry is bracing for a wave of unprecedented uncertainty. During a tri-national panel discussion titled, “Navigating USMCA Review: The Future of North American Produce Trade” at The Packer’s West Coast Produce Expo, industry experts gathered to dissect the high-stakes political and economic shifts threatening to redefine cross-border trade.
With outcomes ranging from a formal extension of the agreement to a complete dissolution into fractured bilateral deals, panelists made it clear to attendees that instability has officially become the new baseline for agricultural commerce.
Panel moderator Brian Kuehl, director of government and public affairs at Pinion, emphasized the crucial role of policy intelligence in helping businesses make informed decisions amid fluctuating global regulations.
He describes Pinon as a global agriculture advising company that works with farmers, ranchers and food processors throughout the food and ag supply chain.
“We like to say from policy to plate. I like that expression because policy is what I do. My day job is tracking what governments are doing around the world, trying to provide that intelligence back to our clients that helps them make better, well-informed business decisions,” Kuehl says.
Kuehl also runs a number of nonprofits focused on advocacy issues for U.S. agriculture, including Farmers for Free Trade, a 501(c) (4) agriculture umbrella advocacy organization and the Agriculture Trade Education Council, a 501(c) (3) non-advocacy trade education group that has worked with produce companies, helping to educate their next generation of leaders about international trade issues, pros and cons, and what trade can mean for produce.
Kuehl was joined on stage by prominent agricultural leaders including Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council; Ana Ambrosi, director of corporate communications for Avocados From Mexico; and Claire Citeau, former executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance and current executive vice president for the Canadian Pork Council.
The panel highlighted the urgent need for advocacy and education as the agricultural supply chain prepares for potential disruption. It also underscored that navigating the upcoming review will require a unified, proactive effort from policy to plate.
What’s at Stake for U.S. Potatoes
Potatoes are the most widely produced vegetable in the country, with cultivation spanning from Maine, Alaska, Hawaii and Florida to almost every state in between, says Quarles, who adds that this widespread cultivation “creates an enormous political footprint” that allows the NPC to actively engage with numerous government officials.
Quarles says the U.S. potato industry contributes roughly $100 billion annually, either directly or indirectly, from activities originating on America’s family potato farms. He also highlights how frequently potatoes appear on consumer plates as breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack items, emphasizing their incredible diversity.
He also notes the industry’s contribution to the labor market, stating that “the jobs are well over 700,000 when you think of the farmworkers all the way up to folks working in restaurants or in retail.” His goal moving forward is to use proper policy and trade advocacy to expand those numbers even further
“On USMCA specifically … those encompass two of [U.S. potatoes’] top three trading partners. Mexico first, Japan is in the middle for us, and then Canada is third. They are massively ahead of everyone else. It’s really, really important, and it goes back to the old poem, ‘good fences make good neighbors.’ Good trade agreements make good trading partners,” says Quarles.
He is hopeful that the trade playing field will evolve to everyone’s equal benefit.
“If you look at the life from NAFTA to USMCA and now what may come after, these have been incredibly important agreements for defining an essential part of trade for the potato industry in the U.S.,” he says. “Just raw numbers, 20% of everything we grow for the potato industry has got to get out of here in some form, either processed or fresh or dehydrated potatoes. There’s several different streams from which it can be exported, but it needs to find foreign markets in order to maintain a healthy economics for our industry.”
Mexican Avocados Rely on Integrated Food System
Ambrosi sees Avocados From Mexico as a highly successful example of bi-national trade that feeds into a deeply integrated, efficient North American supply chain. For both Mexico and the broader industry, this trade framework supports a $13.5 billion economy and provides over 120,000 jobs across the U.S. and Mexico.
“It’s a really great example of how trade works and why it works,” she says. “North America is already an integrated economic and food system that works wonderfully, and I think the produce industry is one clear example of how deeply integrated North America has become. And the real question here is: ‘Do we want to compete internally or do we want to compete together globally?’
“And I think in terms of consumer expectations —reliability, affordability, food security — it’s important. I think jobs depend on having an integrated supply chain and having a year-round supply to meet consumer demand, integration, predictability, affordability, and job and food security,” she continues. “Those are all benefits of trade between our three economies … And it’s really a matter of highlighting how we’re better together.”
Canada “Attached at the Hip”
Citeau emphasizes that Canada’s agri-food sector is inherently trade dependent.
“We cannot eat everything we produce, so trade matters for us,” she says. “Canada is the ninth largest exporter of food products, so trade agreements are critical to how we do business and to provide the predictable rules-based, science-based framework for business and farmers to operate,” she says.
Citeau also stressed that the USMCA (known as CUSMA in Canada) is essential for providing farmers and producers with duty-free market access, alongside science- and rules-based mechanisms that build business confidence.
“This framework is vital because Canadian and U.S. supply chains are deeply integrated, with 70% of Canadian agricultural exports to the U.S. and Mexico arriving to be further processed,” she says.
She says this interdependent relationship makes it essential to protect and maintain the USMCA framework.
“Both the U.S. and Mexico are our largest trading partners,” Citeau says. “We do also sell products elsewhere, but nothing replaces USMCA. We’ve been focused on trade expansion, and I’m trying to be cautious to not call it trade diversification because there’s no way we’re going to be moving away from the U.S. We’re attached to the hip, so for us it is essential that we keep a good thing going.
Mandatory Six-Year Review on July 1
When USMCA, the successor to NAFTA, was renegotiated in 2018 and subsequently adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2019, it came with a built-in, mandatory six-year review mechanism. This upcoming July 1 deadline requires the three participating nations to evaluate the agreement, make necessary improvements, and potentially signal their continued commitment to the trade framework.
Kuehl explains that while a “thumbs down” or a failure to reach a deal by July 1 won’t cause the agreement to immediately disappear — as it would trigger an annual review or a 10-year sunset window — the continuation of the agreement is paramount for industry stability.
“But for stability and certainty, it would obviously be ideal if all three countries agreed to continue the agreement and we had that certainty for another 16 years,” says Kuehl.
Because the USMCA was originally adopted with historic bipartisan margins in Congress, Kuehl thinks any dramatic adjustments would require congressional approval, meaning current discussions are more likely to focus on “coloring around the edges” through side agreements and side letters rather than a fundamental rewrite.
Kuehl also tees up the specific relevance of this trade framework to the produce and agricultural sectors by looking at the scale of the integrated North American economy. He points out that while the produce industry is a vital component of the USMCA, it represents a relatively small piece of a massive trading relationship where Mexico is the largest trading partner of the U.S., driving $800 to $900 billion in total trade, and Canada sits closely at No. 2.
Additionally, Kuehl highlights that with nearly $1.9 trillion in total trade flowing between the three nations, the continuation of the USMCA is critical to maintaining the highly integrated, prosperous economic engine that North American agriculture heavily relies upon.
“Wedded Together” Supply Chain
Noting the deeply intertwined, “wedded together” nature of continental trade, Kuehl asked panelists to examine how processing operations and raw inputs cross borders seamlessly. He also notes that while American businesses often fixate on what they export, they frequently overlook crucial imported inputs.
Miteau says trade frameworks naturally evolve, and even under NAFTA, built-in collaboration mechanisms allowed the three governments to make necessary tweaks and improvements as producer practices and supply chains changed over the years. She says Canada views the upcoming mandatory USMCA review as a healthy exercise to see what is working, what is not, and whether the agreement is being implemented exactly as intended.
But she also stresses the symbiotic trade relationship between Canada and the U.S.
“In Canada, 70% of our population is within an hour distance from the U.S. border, so a lot of the operations tend to go south to seek partners to make products,” she says. “We don’t do just trade; we make products together. I think that’s really part of one of the unique facts about that relationship that does not really exist anywhere else.”
Ambrosi reiterates that North America functions as a deeply integrated food and economic ecosystem. She explains that both NAFTA and the USMCA provided a necessary “framework for certainty.”
Invoking a recent global lesson, Ambrosi says one thing the pandemic taught us was “how costly disruption is in the supply chain,” making it vital to keep the current framework alive to prevent costly instabilities.
Ambrosi points to the economic reality of avocado trade between the two nations. While Mexico remains the top global producer, exporter and per capita consumer of avocados, the U.S. has grown into the world’s largest market by volume, with 85% of its avocados originating from Mexico. She points out that the integrated supply chain is a win-win for American buyers.
“If you want avocados year round, they’re gonna have to come from Mexico,” she says. “So, it’s a way to meet the consumer demand that expects reliability and affordability and food security.”
This booming market is a direct result of formalized trade, says Ambrosi, noting that prior to NAFTA, very few places in the U.S. consumed avocados. After Mexican imports were permitted in 1997, the industry expanded state-by-state to cover all 50 states within a few years.
Ambrosi says that the volume of Mexican avocados in the U.S. has doubled in just seven years, leading into a record-breaking season of continuous growth—sustainable growth that “relies on this framework of certainty and predictability and reliability.”
On the potato front, Quarles says the processing infrastructure is directly driven by continental trade dynamics.
“It’s not a mystery why these massive processing facilities are placed very close to the borders of either the U.S. southern border or the U.S. northern border,” he says.
Companies manufacturing frozen French fries, tater tots, or potato chips strategically position these “incredibly sophisticated and mind-blowingly expensive facilities” right at the borders to hedge their bets, gaining the necessary flexibility to navigate fluctuating exchange rates, supply quality and political issues while securing a steady supply of raw product, he says.
While Quarles stresses that the ability to move raw potatoes back and forth across borders in a relatively frictionless way is a fundamental benefit embedded in NAFTA, the USMCA and whatever framework comes next, he also notes that agricultural trade faces unique, non-tariff vulnerabilities that do not impact other industries. Specifically, he warns that “pest and disease issues can become the most significant of the non-tariff barriers that that hit us,” noting that an outbreak can serve as a “show-stopping experience” that alters market economics overnight.
Quarles also cautions that “creative governments can also use pest and disease issues as reasons not to engage in trade at all and simply to protect their markets.” To combat this protectionism, he praises the USMCA’s inclusion of a robust set of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) tools to resolve these disputes.
“Having a robust set of tools to deal with, specifically the SPS issues —sanitary and phytosanitary, the pest and disease issues — is incredibly important. And it was really kind of a groundbreaking thing. Previously, those rules existed with the World Trade Organization, but they didn’t filter down to bilateral, or in this case, trilateral agreements. In the USMCA, it was new ground that was broken there, and I think to everyone’s long-term benefit.”
