A partner with Polar Pork says, as discussions around North American trade continue, the fear among pork producers is that issues not related to their industry will impact the final outcome.
On July 1st the United States declined to extend the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement for a 16-year term triggering annual reviews and opening the option for any of the participants to end the deal with six months notice. Florian Possberg, a partner with Polar Pork, observes there have been points where there appeared be some serious negotiations and then things kind of seesawed.
Quote-Florian Possberg-Polar Pork:
We have things in Canada that the United States needs, whether it's minerals or potash or oil. We have things that we need from the United States and a big part of that is just having a market to sell our products so there's good reason to negotiate a trade deal.
There are certain irritants, though. Lumber has been a longstanding irritant. The Americans think that we don't charge the people that produce the lumber a fair price for the trees that they use.
They're really quite concerned about access to our supply managed products, particularly dairy for some reason, whether it's cheese or milk or whatever. And so those tend to be things that are obvious.
But these people, the negotiators, negotiate behind closed doors so we probably don't know the full extent of issues that are being dealt with. The fact that we don't have something definitive just creates doubt and uncertainty is not good for our business.
Possberg says, assuming that good business principles apply, there is room for optimism that we can have a good outcome here but he acknowledges it's pretty hard at this point to tell how things will turn out but we really hope that, in the end, it will come down to common sense.
Source : Farmscape.ca