President Trump and Chinese President Xi are scheduled to meet Saturday during the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, in hopes of reviving the trade talks bwtween the two countries. This could be the last chance for the two countries to agree on a pathway forward before Trump decides to move ahead with 25% tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese products. 

The U.S. Trade Representative held public hearings this month with over 300 representatives of industries testifying in opposition to the additional tariffs, citing the cost it would impose on consumers, companies and the U.S. economy. In addition there were approximately 3,000 written comments filed with the USTR. The next round of proposed tariffs would hit many consumer products including electronics, computers, shoes, clothing, etc. 

‘Keep America First in Agriculture’
The National Pork Producers Council launched a campaign called “Keep America First in Agriculture” that emphasizes the importance of establishing the proper regulatory framework for gene editing in livestock. NPPC is asking that the regulatory authority be moved from the Food and Drug Administration to the USDA. 

The NPPC argues that USDA is the only agency prepared to regulate this new technology. They say USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service already has a review process in place for genetic editing in plants and could easily be adopted for livestock. 

In a press release, the NPPC says, “countries like Canada, Brazil and Argentina are moving quickly on this advancement to gain competitive advantage in the market, the U.S. running the risk of falling far behind as a result of a regulatory seize by the Food and Drug Administration.” According to the NPPC, the FDA process is an “impractical, lengthy and expensive approval process, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs and nearly 6% of U.S. gross domestic product.”

EU announces U.S. beef quota
The European Union announced that it has reached an agreement on new quota protocol that will give the U.S. 35,000 metric tons of the EU’s 45,000 metric ton tariff rate quota for non-hormone beef. 

The quota for the United States will increase from 18,500 metric tons to 35,000 mt over a seven-year period. The remaining amount of quota level left available will be for other countries, which would be expected to be filled by Argentina, Australia and Uruguay. 

The EU expects to have commission approval by the end of June, with the EU Council approving the agreement in July. Then the agreement will go before the EU Parliament later this year for consideration.

The United States won a World Trade Organization case in 1998 challenging the EU’s prohibition on imports of hormone-treated beef. An agreement was reached between the United States and the EU in 2009 that the EU would establish a 45,000-ton quota which would avoid the EU’s 20% tariff. However, instead of the United States filling the quota, other competing countries started filling the quota.

RFS Integrity Act
The “RFS Integrity Act of 2019” would bring greater transparency and predictability to the Environmental Protection Agency’s small refinery exemption process. The bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) would require small refineries to petition the EPA by June 1 for the Renewable Fuel Standard hardship exemption. This would ensure that the EPA properly accounts for exempted gallons in the annual Renewable Volume Obligations set each November.

Corn growers have complained that the misuse of the small refinery waivers “negatively impact farmers by undercutting the RFS and reducing corn demand.” According to the National Corn Growers Association, the 2017 RFS waivers reduced the 15 billion-gallon ethanol volume to 13.18 billion gallons which effectively reduced the RFS to pre-2013 blending requirements and reduced the demand for corn.

President Trump has ordered the EPA and USDA to address the RFS waiver issue.

China agrees to reform rice and wheat subsidies
China has agreed to reform its domestic market price support for rice and wheat prior to April 2020. This is the result of China losing a WTO dispute in February regarding China’s domestic subsidies for these two commodities. 

The U.S. wheat industry believes it has lost hundreds of millions of dollars because of China’s domestic support programs that kept the price of Chinese wheat as high as $10 per bushel. This encouraged greater production by Chinese producers.   

USDA believes that China is stockpiling about 140 million metric tons of wheat — more than half of global ending stocks.

Ag approps passes House
The House of Representatives passed a multi-agency Fiscal Year ’20 appropriations bill that includes agriculture. 

The bill prohibits USDA from moving forward with the USDA’s pork modernization proposal until: 1) Office of the Inspector General reports to Congress findings on the data used by USDA in support of the development and design of the swine slaughter inspection program that is the subject of such proposed rule, and 2) FSIS addresses OIG’s findings.

The Senate has yet to decide when it will begin consideration of appropriation bills.

Source: P. Scott Shearer, who is solely responsible for the information provided, and wholly owns the information. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.