Meat Industry INSIGHTS Newsletter

970915 NPPC Reiterates its Support for Fast-Track Negotiating Authority

September 17, 1997

WASHINGTON - The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) reiterated its support for fast-track negotiating authority, one day after President Clinton presented his legislation to Congress asking for fast-track authority. Congress must renew fast-track authority in order for the United States to participate in upcoming international trade negotiations such as the so-called "agriculture 1999," which will permit U.S. agriculture to continue to expand exports. Although agricultural groups have been pushing for a clean bill, this legislation does contain some labor and environment provisions that the pork trade association said it can live with.

"The U.S. pork industry has experienced rapidly growing exports as a result of the Uruguay Round Agreement and the NAFTA, and in order to continue that momentum, we need fast-track," said NPPC's President Jerry King, a Victoria, Ill.-based pork producer.

According to King, 96 percent of the world's population is living outside U.S. borders and experiencing rapid, economic growth. "The first thing that people do when they move up from poverty is upgrade their diets. Simply put, if we don't get fast-track renewed, U.S. agriculture will lose billions of dollars."

If fast-track does not pass before Congress adjourns this year, King said the political reality is that "the U.S. will be forced to stand on the sidelines during the next century while the rest of the world continues to conduct trade deals at record pace."

Fast-track will permit the U.S. Administration to negotiate international trade agreements by allowing Congress to vote yes or no while forfeiting its right to offer amendments. Fast-track authority expired three years ago, and was used during the NAFTA and the Uruguay Round. Such trade initiatives have been very positive for the pork industry, boosting the bottom line for pork producers last year by approximately $10 per head on cash hog prices. In 1996, the U.S. pork industry exported more than one billion dollars of pork for the first time, but King says that number will be significantly larger with further agricultural trade liberalization.

The National Pork Producers Council is a national association representing pork producers in 44 affiliated states who annually generate approximately $11 billion in farm gate sales, $64 billion in economic activity and employ 600,000 Americans from the farm through processing.

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