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Japan a strong customer of U.S. pork

An Iowa pork producer tells Brownfield the U.S. trade agreement with Japan is yielding strong results.

Trish Cook says the Japanese purchased about $1.5 billion worth of pork from the U.S. in 2023.

“We’re really proud to be able to produce a delicious product, and in Japan they really like to buy chilled pork. And the U.S. is one of the main places that they source that from, so it’s great that we can be partners with each other.”

She says through the bilateral trade deal with Japan tariffs on U.S. pork products will be eliminated by 2025.

“So the U.S. not being in some of the bigger (trade deals) like the old Trans Pacific (Partnership), TPP, as the U.S. is not in that, we still are able to have great trading capabilities with our Japanese trading partners.”

Cook was a guest of Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst during a recent joint session of Congress attended by the Prime Minister of Japan.