Chief U.S. Agriculture Trade Negotiator Addresses Top Issues

Representatives of more than a dozen Colorado agriculture organizations met today with Ambassador Isi Siddiqui, chief U.S. agriculture trade negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, at a White House Business Council Agriculture Roundtable hosted by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF).

Siddiqui outlined the successes the United States has seen in international agriculture trade in recent years while noting that there are other areas that offer potential for additional growth.

“Across all sectors, the United States exported more than $140 billion of agricultural products in 2011,” said the ambassador. “That’s $22 billion more than the previous year.”

Siddiqui noted that U.S. agricultural exports have made a very positive contribution to the National Export Initiative, increasing nearly 40 percent in the past two years while export growth in non-agricultural sectors has been about 35 percent. Red meat exports played an important role in this success.

“Last year we set new records with total exports of U.S. beef being more than $5 billion ($5.42 billion), and for U.S. pork it was more than $6 billion ($6.11 billion),” he said. “Those are huge numbers, reflecting not only strong demand but the removal of many trade barriers.”

Siddiqui noted that President Obama has put a priority on job creation, and that each $1 billion in exports supports approximately 8,400 jobs.

“The president understands the urgency of creating new jobs,” he said, adding that the recently approved free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama will contribute toward that goal.

“All sectors of our economy will benefit from the South Korea free trade agreement,” Siddiqui said. “The average tariff on our agricultural products going into Korea was 53 percent. But with the FTA going into force on March 15, we are able to reduce tariffs on two-thirds of those products to zero, with tariffs on the other one-third of our products going to zero over the next 15 years.”

With 49 million consumers in Korea supporting a $1 trillion economy, he believes the FTA offers a potential $1.9 billion in increased exports for the U.S.

Siddiqui also emphasized that the United States is committed to pursuing sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) transparency with potential trading partners as well as risk-based scientific assessments.

“Ambassador Siddiqui has been a strong advocate for American agriculture, and we’re seeing the results of that in the new FTAs and increased exports,” said Philip Seng, USMEF president and CEO. “There are certainly more challenges ahead, including gaining broader global acceptance on the use of science and biotechnology to help feed a growing world population.”