Contact Victoria Broehm
The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) congratulates U.S. and Mexican trade officials for reaching a preliminary agreement today on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This action brings the United States one step closer toward its goal of ratifying the tripartite agreement with Canada by the end of 2018.
AFIA’s Director of International Policy and Trade Gina Tumbarello stated the following:
“For more than 20 years, the U.S. animal food manufacturing industry has reaped the benefits of trading animal food, feed ingredients and pet food across its northern and southern borders. The North American Free Trade Agreement has not only supported thousands of jobs within the feed and associated industries, it has grown the animal food and feed ingredient export markets in Mexico and Canada to the United States’ largest and second largest, respectively, today. We are encouraged to see the progress U.S. and Mexican trade officials made over several months in resolving their differences and modernizing the agreement, and hope that Canada will quickly follow suit so that industries in all three countries can continue to benefit from the largest free trade zone in the world.”
Since NAFTA’s implementation, U.S. animal food exports to Canada and Mexico have more than tripled, growing from roughly $669 million in 1993 to over $3.1 billion today. Much of this success stems from the tariff-free access the United States enjoys with the two countries, which would likely revert to tariffs under World Trade Organization rules if NAFTA weren’t in effect.
AFIA has been working through coalitions to represent the animal food industry’s concerns to Congress. In particular, the association would like to see a renegotiated NAFTA that: preserves the current duty-free market access; addresses modern issues, such as sanitary and phytosanitary issues; implements science-based regulations and regulatory cooperation and coherence; and addresses the United States’ concerns over Canada’s feed registration requirements, which has unfairly disadvantaged the U.S. animal food industry.