Improved NAFTA could deliver more potato gains
Improvements in the North American Free Trade Agreement could boost U.S. potato exports to Canada and Mexico in a big way.
That’s the view of the National Potato Council, which submitted comments in June to the U.S. Trade Representative with suggestions how to improve the agreement while acknowledging that NAFTA has been “extremely beneficial” to the potato industry.
Contacted before the recent Mexican court ruling about U.S. potato access in Mexico, John Keeling, executive vice president and CEO of the National Potato Council, said that the negotiations for a new NAFTA could help exports to Mexico.
“We think that the NAFTA renegotiation has great potential to look at expanding trade with Mexico, whether directly through NAFTA or a sidebar conversation to look at some of the trade problems we have had with Mexico over the years and find a resolution,” Keeling said Aug. 3.
The first priority, he said, is to make sure the new agreement doesn’t lose the benefit of tariff-free access for U.S. potatoes to both Mexico and Canada.
Current U.S. potato exports (combined fresh and processed) to Canada total about $315 million, up sharply from $109 million exported in 1993, before NAFTA went into effect.
Sales to Mexico have grown even faster, with potato exports (fresh and processed) of $230 million now way up from $21 million in potato sales there in 1993.
Keeling said both markets could grow much more.
Currently, U.S. fresh potatoes can only be shipped to a 26-kilometer zone along the Mexican border.
A quicker resolution of phytosanitary disputes would be welcome, he said, characterizing current restrictions on U.S. fresh potato shipments as based on “unscientific and inconsistent” application of sanitary and phytosanitary standards.
“With full, unrestricted access for all U.S. fresh and processed potatoes, exports to Canada and Mexico could generate an additional $200 million annually,” Keeling said in the June letter.
In Canada, Keeling said anti-dumping actions in British Columbia have taken away export opportunities.
Keeling said anti-dumping duties must be based on economic analysis by neutral third parties and not by those claiming to be affected. The system for challenging anti-dumping duties also is flawed, he said.
In addition, Keeling said Canada’s requirement to identify a domestic shortage prior to shipment imposes unnecessary burdens to trade in potatoes and in other U.S. commodities, he said.
