For the Week Ending June 1, 2018
NPPC CONCERNED ABOUT TRADE RETALIATION, URGES END TO TRADE DISPUTES
Following Thursday’s move by the Trump administration to implement tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico (and Canada and the European Union) and the subsequent Mexican tariff retaliation on a host of U.S. goods, including pork, NPPC warned about the economic consequences and called for an end to the trade disputes, including the one with China. In retaliation for U.S. tariffs put on its steel and aluminum, China on April 2 imposed an additional 25 percent tariff on U.S. pork, as well as duties on 127 other American good. NPPC, in a statement issued Thursday (and one issued Tuesday on China), pointed out that global export market uncertainty has resulted in considerable lost value for U.S. pork producers. According to Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes, hog futures have dropped by $18 per animal, amounting to a $2.2 billion loss on an annualized basis, since March 1 when speculation began about U.S. pork access to the Chinese market. The market disruptions, said NPPC, come at a time when U.S. pork is expanding production to record levels. Last year, the U.S. pork industry shipped more than half of its $6.5 billion in exports to Canada ($792 million), China ($1.1 billion) and Mexico ($1.5 billion).
REQUEST MADE FOR CFTC TO RECEIVE FULL FUNDING
NPPC this week was among 16 production agriculture organizations and agribusinesses that urged Senate appropriators to grant the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget request for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC oversees and helps safeguard the futures and swaps markets, which are used by pork producers and other agricultural sectors to manage financial risks. In a letter sent Thursday to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, the agricultural groups asked that the subcommittee agree to the administration’s $281.5 million budget for the commission, whose responsibilities, they noted, “have expanded dramatically in recent years, but funding has not kept up.”
WHAT’S AHEAD
WORLD PORK EXPO NEXT WEEK
NPPC’s annual World Pork Expo, this year celebrating its 30th anniversary, will be held next week (June 6-8) at the Iowa State fairgrounds in Des Moines. Ambassador Gregg Doud, chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Greg Ibach, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, will address NPPC investors on June 6 and 7, respectively. For more information about, and media registration for, the world’s largest pork industry trade show and exhibition, click here.