The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association hopes the Trans-Pacific Partnership can triple beef exports
Canada needs to be part of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership deal for the health of its economy, job market and beef trade.
So says John Masswohl, director of government and international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
As a member country in a TPP deal, Canada could work toward duty-free access to lucrative markets, particularly Japan, and demand certain concessions from countries that joined later.
“If Canada isn’t part of the deal, then look at who else is in there — Australia and the United States,” said Masswohl. “If they’re going to get duty free access into Japan and we don’t, we can forget about being able to export Canadian beef to Japan.”
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Japan imposes a 38.5 percent tariff on Canadian beef. Despite that, Canada exported more than $100 million worth of beef to Japan last year, Masswohl said.
In addition to tariffs, Japan has a policy “safeguard” that increases the tariff to 50 percent if its imports reach a certain trigger point. A TPP deal could change that.
“Our (beef) imports could be quite a bit higher without the tariff and without that safeguard,” he said.
“Our feeling is that if we can get the deal that we think is achievable here with TPP, we could be doing $250 to $300 million a year into Japan”
Masswohl said Canada is already at a disadvantage to Australia in terms of beef sales to Japan. Those two countries signed a trade agreement that reduced Australia’s beef tariff to 32.5 percent.
“We’re probably going to be short of that $100 million this year because of that,” he said. “It’s either we get the deal we need and we move forward, or we’ll lose the market.”
Some have suggested that Canada’s inclusion in the deal depends at least in part on concessions on supply management.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, however, has said Canada won’t be bullied into any decisions on that score.
Masswohl said the suggestion that Canadian concessions will be needed on dairy, poultry and eggs ignores the complexity of the talks and the deal.
“It’s a bit simplistic to say that there is a sticking point. These are complex negotiations where every country wants multiple things from various other countries,” he said. “There are difficult decisions. There’s things outside of agriculture as well.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces, but the key to all of them is that Canada be in on this deal right from the beginning.”
The TPP deal hinges largely on whether the U.S. obtains fast-track trade promotion authority that would allow it to sign a deal without having it renegotiated by Congress.
TPP negotiators met near Washington, D.C., last week amid what Masswohl deemed was a positive mood that fast-track authority could be approved soon.
Though Canada could conceivably enter a TPP deal later, that would eliminate its ability to dictate terms with other countries that also joined later.
“Membership has its privileges and one of the privileges is there are other countries that want in that are not in … Taiwan and Korea are lining up and if we’re in and they’re trying to get in, we can basically demand certain concessions from those countries,” said Masswohl.
