Farmscape for March 25, 2019

NATIONAL Public Relations says, although the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement has yet to be ratified, it has reduced the uncertainty that had existed among exporters.
USMCA, CPTPP and the like: Deciphering the Alphabet Soup of Trade Agreements will be among the topics discussed as part of the 2019 London Swine Conference set for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Jean-Michel Laurin, the Vice President, Policy and Public Affairs with NATIONAL Public Relations, says while the future of the USMCA is still not clear, it has relieved much of the uncertainty that had existed since the election of Donald Trump.

Clip-Jean-Michel Laurin-NATIONAL Public Relations:
Dealing with so much uncertainly with such a large trading partner with whom we have a high level of economic integration was bad.
Business hates uncertainty.
Companies, when they're looking to invest they want to know there's going to be a market for their product so I think that now we've got the three governments agreeing on an improved NAFTA, called the USMCA, removes that big element of uncertainty.
To me that's the key take away from this new agreement now.
If you look at the actual content of what it says, it could lead to some positive outcomes for the Canadian pork industry.
The agreement opens up the potential for the three governments to do further cooperation on regulatory issues, on management of diseases for instance, on addressing disputes, addressing potential trade distortions.
Again the agreement I think sets the process through which this type of collaboration could take place in the future.
If it does anything, I think it would have a positive impact just because it would lead the three governments to work together more closely on some of the common challenges that the pork industry is facing in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Laurin acknowledges, while Canada and Mexico appear ready to move forward with ratification, it's still unclear how things will unfold in the United States.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork