WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – U.S. chief agricultural commerce negotiator Doug McKalip desires China to maintain striving to satisfy U.S. farm items buy commitments underneath the 2020 “Part 1” commerce deal, however advised Reuters that he is also pushing to diversify exports past the most important U.S. grain buyer.
In his first media interview on Thursday since his Dec. 23 Senate affirmation of his U.S. Commerce Consultant workplace submit, McKalip stated that his high precedence was opening new markets for U.S. agricultural merchandise.
“I feel for the American farmer, it is necessary to have a various set of consumers on the market,” he stated. “We have to develop extra markets.”
China will stay an necessary high buyer, he stated, a day after U.S. Census Bureau commerce knowledge confirmed China reached a report $40.85 billion – almost a fifth of worldwide U.S. farm exports that additionally reached a report $213 billion.
The acquisition values, aided by sharply greater grain costs due partially war-constrained provides from Ukraine, meant that China would have happy the 2020 goal outlined within the Trump administration's Part 1 commerce deal – targets that China failed to succeed in within the prior three years.
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“We would actually prefer to see their purchases be nearer to the highest numbers that they agreed to,” McKalip stated of China.
He added that USTR was “not asking for a favor. We're simply asking them to do what they signed onto after they signed Part 1.”
NEW MARKETS, NEW PRODUCTS
Each continent has potential markets for U.S. row crops, grains and different staples, and the Ukraine warfare means demand for these will keep excessive, he stated, however there have been many different new export alternatives to pursue.
“I am fascinated about specialty crops, organics, biofuels, all types of rising areas of U.S. agriculture that I feel are thrilling, and that I feel customers on the market need,” McKalip stated. “We simply want to ensure we're ready the place different governments haven't got limitations” to such merchandise.
Southeast Asia represents an necessary area to increase U.S. farm exports, and McKalip stated he intends to work on lowering commerce limitations by the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific Financial Framework negotiations.
Though the talks usually are not anticipated to end in any tariff reductions, McKalip stated that “regulator-to-regulator” discussions for bettering requirements for utilizing land and water assets, conservation, and farm labor requirements will help stage the enjoying area in such talks.
McKalip additionally advised Reuters that he has requested Mexico to clarify the science behind its genetically modified corn ban and that USTR additionally desires Canada to broaden U.S. entry to its dairy import quotas to resolve a second U.S. commerce problem.
Reporting by David Lawder
Enhancing by Marguerita Choy
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