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Hope remains for trade reconciliation

An agribusiness leader says he remains optimistic full-fledged trade wars can still be avoided.

Michigan Agri-Business Association President Chuck Lippstreu tells Brownfield, “Twice in the last two months we’ve seen delays and sort of postponements of across-the-board tariffs.”

“That gives us some level of hope that a full-on trade war with our neighbors in Canada can be avoided, and we’re hopeful that it will be,” he says.

Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Tim Boring says Canada is the state’s largest ag export destination and the uncertainty has already dampened trade.

“There are a lot of secondary products that are generated on farms and within agricultural businesses, things like dry distillers grain, sugarbeet byproducts that are also going to find their ways to animal feed,” he says. “There is an awful lot of live swine that is produced over in Ontario that comes into Michigan for final processing here.”

The American Farm Bureau Federation economists say new retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China affect nearly $30 billion of U.S. ag exports.

U.S. tariffs on imports of Mexican and Canadian goods under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement are paused until April 2.

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