Improving Trade with Japan Pt 1
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Japan has been a major trade partner with the U.S. and Washington state for decades, but it could be much more for things like Washington apples.
With that in mind, the entire Washington state congressional delegation is working together to ask U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to repair that relationship.
Representative Dan Newhouse says Japan is an important trading partner ...
NEWHOUSE ... "As most people in our state know, we are a major producer of apples in this country. Two-thirds of apples grown in the United States are from Washington and about 90-percent of the apples exported, U.S. apple exports, come from our state and certainly Japan has been a very important market and one that we would like to remove any technical issues or barriers that impede our access to those markets. It's very critical."
Newhouse says he's confident the USTR is on top of it ...
NEWHOUSE ... "The Trade Representative, Mr. Lighthizer has pledged to work as hard as possible to make that happen and certainly in light of other relationships with other apple importing countries, it's very critical that we have access to all of the important markets that we have available to us and Japan historically has been a great
one."
Newhouse says he and Senator Maria Cantwell helped put the letter together with hopes of resolving technical issues and removing barriers to allow Washington apples access to Japanese markets.
Listen tomorrow for more on this letter and the work being done to repair our trade relationship with Japan.
