If Canadian farmers are skeptical about the value of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, they can ask the American National Pork Producers Council about it.The NPPC is livid that Canada passed a free trade agreement while the U.S. Congress won’t pass the one American negotiators completed three years ago.“It is unfortunate that our producers have to pay the price for U.S. inaction on trade,” said NPPC president Sam Carney in an official statement after Canada’s Parliament approved its deal on June 21.“Canada will gain the inside track on future export opportunities in the sizable and growing Colombian market.”The Canada-Colombia deal means preferential access for many Canadian products, including dominant prairie exports like wheat, malting barley, pulse crops, pork and beef.Grain Growers of Canada executive director Richard Phillips said the deal will boost prairie agricultural exports.“This agreement puts us in ahead of the U.S., the European Union, probably by several years,” said Phillips.“That’ll give our people a chance to get in there and build relationships. This gives us a huge head start on our competitors.”U.S. corn and soybeans have to pay a 17 percent import duty to be imported into Colombia. Canada’s duty-free access means prairie peas can now compete in the Colombian feedgrain market against the American crops, said Canadian Special Crops Association chief executive officer Gordon Bacon.“It’s a big deal,” said Bacon.“It’s an advantage to us to have duty-free access into the Colombian market when other major suppliers don’t.”Canada is already the dominant lentil supplier to Colombia.During the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, in June, NPPC trade expert Nick Giordano warned the American hog industry that it had much to lose if Congress didn’t pass free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Canadians and others would slip in and steal the market, he said.“Our friends to the north are very competitive. They have a good product. And we will lose those markets and that will be a crying shame.”At the G20 summit in Toronto, U.S. president Barack Obama said he intends to push forward the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement and pressure Congress to pass it.Canada has not yet concluded a free trade pact with South Korea because of disputes over market access for Korean automotive products and Canadian beef.
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