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TPP remains a sore subject at Cattle Convention

The beef industry continues to lament the absence of the U.S. in the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Mike Murphy with CattleFax says the trade deal, now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership, held great promise for American agriculture.

“The remaining countries came together and what that resulted in is an opportunity for those countries to come together and create a trade agreement that would take duties down to nearly nothing for many commodities.”

The duty on U.S. beef exported to Japan is more than 38 percent.

Murphy says there is optimism bilateral talks between those two countries will lead to an agreement sometime this year.

“And that would certainly put us in a situation as we look forward in the next few years to certainly be more competitive from a trade standpoint, and specifically to the beef sector.”

Murphy spoke during a CattleFax presentation at the Cattle Industry Convention in New Orleans.