After nine months of promises by President Donald Trump not to do any harm to the agricultural sector, farmers have begun to show discontent with the president’s threats to leave NAFTA. Numerous agricultural and food companies, as well as trade associations wrote a letter in late October to the Department of Commerce, challenging the secretary’s assertions that a potential NAFTA withdrawal would cause no harm to these industries. Farming groups are adamant that Trump pays no mind to their pleas to save the agreement and is determined to destroy it.
“I’ve come to believe this administration is determined to end NAFTA,” said the leader of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
Farming groups now fear they will lose their main source of income – exports to Mexico, which last year alone amounted to $17.9 billion. As a result they are now trying to stop this disaster for U.S. farmers, as they see it. If the North American Free Trade Agreement was reversed, it would only demonstrate how little the agricultural industry is able to influence Trump who has threatened the agreement from the beginning of his presidency. It also goes to show this industry’s failure to come up with a strategy to oppose this threat.
“The importance of trade to economic growth in the food and ag sector is so fundamental that there tends to be an assumption that everyone understands that. We can get lazy about our meeting our educational challenge in explaining that part of our industry to others,” said one association leader.
Trump has been threatening to withdraw from the pact if Canada and Mexico do not comply with U.S. demands, which agriculture groups believe would be detrimental to their exports. Mexico has made similar threats should Trump decide to employ that tactic.
Part of the letter to Wilbur Ross, the Department of Commerce secretary, says that this would only lead to contracts being canceled and sales being lost. Some even argue that the letter only proves the Trump administration saw the agricultural benefits of NAFTA as something they could use to negotiate with Mexico and not something that needs to be saved at all costs.
Despite optimism from Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that NAFTA talks will end with a positive outcome, the Agriculture Department is working to develop a contingency plan should a NAFTA withdrawal really happen.
“We’re talking with the administration and Congress about some mitigation efforts if that were to occur; about how we could protect our producers with that [farm] safety net based on prices that may respond negatively to any kind of NAFTA withdrawal,” Perdue said.
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