Trade work continues, says McKalip

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — For Doug McKalip, the chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, removing barriers to and boosting U.S. agricultural exports and trade is a work in progress.

McKalip was in Costa Rica, meeting with representatives from that Central American nation’s agriculture and trade ministries. He said those meetings included discussions about U.S. farm products.

McKalip defended the Biden administration’s record on trade and specifically its track record on growing foreign markets for U.S. agricultural products.

“This administration is pursuing trade and, specifically, agricultural trade as aggressively as any. We are working hard to open up markets out there,” he said.

McKalip said that free trade agreements are not the only measure of trade success.

“Sometimes, farmers look at free trade agreements as the measure of success. I would point out that we have been able to reduce tariffs on nine commodities with India,” he said.

“We reduced the tariff on fertilizer coming in from Morocco. We are doing all of this just by sitting down bilaterally with those countries. We are getting faster results.

“With FTAs, you may spend five years negotiating, and at the end of that, a head of state could pull out of the agreement or there is a long phase-in of the tariff reductions that you don’t see results for a while. We are working hard to get immediate results that farmers and ranchers can see right now.”

McKalip said that while sustainability has entered into trade discussions, negotiators are being careful to keep the term in perspective.

“We all want to see sustainability be practiced by all trading partners and I think the U.S. is a worldwide leader in that. What we don’t want to see is for nations to erect a barrier to trade and then put a ‘prove it to me’ policy in place that isn’t really based on benchmarks that relate back to soil, water, carbon, habitat improvements,” he said.

“We have made sure there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach, that we allow for local conditions and flexibility. We also want to make sure that the actual benchmarking and measuring of sustainability truly gets back to what makes a difference for the land and the water.”

In January, Tom Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture, met with Tang Renjian, Chinese minister of agriculture and rural affairs.

McKalip said work continues on getting U.S. agricultural grain and protein exports back on track.

“We discussed several of the issues we have, both with grain products and with some animal protein products, as well,” he said.

“We had a very positive discussion and we are going to continue to engage with China. That is an ongoing effort and one that is very much a priority for us.”

Southeast Asia and South Africa are the two global areas that hold the most potential to become new markets for U.S. trade.

“I would say that if you look at many nations throughout southeast Asia, they represent very fast growing economies with growing middle classes who are interested in the kinds of agricultural products that we grow,” McKalip said.

“As we look to diversify our marketplace in Asia beyond the traditional China market, we see really tremendous opportunities in places like Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand. There is a lot of opportunity there.

“The other highlight I would give is, I was in South Africa with Ambassador (Katherine) Tai in November. We were there with many others to help relaunch the AGOA Initiative, a legislative and trade partnership we have with the continent of Africa. We did a breakout session just about agricultural products and food security.

“I think there are very fast-growing markets there, that maybe the U.S. farm sector hasn’t always thought about. I think it’s an area where we have a lot of benefit, not just exporting there, but we have a lot to gain from imports of things we don’t grow all seasons of the year.”