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Doud says solving trade problems not easy

A former chief agricultural negotiator with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office says resolving trade imbalances and creating new markets will not be easy.

Gregg Doud is now the President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, and has served as a senior staff member for the Senate Ag Committee, chief economist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and an analyst for U.S. Wheat Associates.  He tells Brownfield when it comes to trade negotiations, the low hanging fruit is gone. “The European Union is entrenched, and that is a very polite way to put it in terms of their protectionism. You’ve got countries like India that you have virtually no relationship in. This is a major undertaking and this is just not something you do in a couple of discussions.”

Doud says when he was working on the phase one agreement with China, it took a long time to agree. “Hundreds of hours over the course of a year to get that agreement, where we fixed 57 things in our ag trading relationship between the U.S. and China.”

Doud says if the European Union fully implemented their Farm to Fork initiative, they would be a major grain importer, but that doesn’t mean easier access to the market. “In some of these cases, they’re going to need something from somewhere, but we couldn’t sell it to them because of all of these non-tariff trade barriers, sanitary, phytosanitary issues, etc. They’re ridiculous.”

Doud says trade challenges remain, including Canada’s tariff rate quota limiting dairy product sales, and the European Union’s geographic indicators, which monopolize some product names based on their place of origin. He says Mexico agreed not to follow EU guidelines as part of the USMCA agreement.

AUDIO: Gregg Doud discusses the difficulty of making or improving trade deals with Brownfield’s Larry Lee.