Paris Accord Withdrawal and Ross Eager to Redo NAFTA

Paris Accord Withdrawal and Ross Eager to Redo NAFTA

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
From the Ag Information Network, I'm Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.

**As you probably know by now, President Trump is keeping campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.

He also announced the U.S. will begin negotiations to either re-enter the Paris agreement or start a new negotiation that would be a better deal for "our businesses, workers, people and taxpayers."

Trump says he couldn't support a deal that "fails to live up to our own environmental ideals" while sending "billions of dollars to countries that have taken our jobs."

**U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he's anxious to move quickly on renegotiating NAFTA, stressing his goal is to "do NO harm" to exports of U.S. farm commodities to Mexico and Canada.

One of the major NAFTA achievements for the U.S. was the removal of virtually all tariffs on U.S. farm commodities, which has allowed U.S. Ag exports to Mexico to skyrocket.

NAFTA also tore down barriers to U.S. exports of beef and pork to Canada, increasing trade and domestic demand for feed grains.

**Ag shippers and other waterway users are struggling to talk the Trump administration out of using river tolls to pay for rebuilding locks and dams under its infrastructure initiative.

Representatives of the Waterways Council met twice with administration officials to push an industry proposal to fund 24 projects at a cost of $8.7 billion over 10 years.

No word if the initiative includes locks and dams in the Pacific Northwest.

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