Mexico’s expansion of its NAFTA retaliation list to U.S. pork in the long-running trucking dispute with the U.S. means millions in new tariffs on ham and other pork sold in Mexico.
National Pork Producers Council Vice President and Counsel for International Affairs Nick Giordano charges U.S. refusal to allow long-haul Mexican trucks into this country under NAFTA now means Mexico will take a pound of flesh out of U.S. pork sales there…
“Our most popular item is the unprocessed ham, the leg of the hog, if you will. That is now being assessed a five-percent tariff, it was previously zero, under NAFTA. And then a smaller product, but obviously important to some sectors of the industry…cooked skins, which, we might refer to in this country as pork rind, and that’s a very high duty of 20%.”
Rind is a small piece of U.S. pork sales of 760-million in Mexico last year. But Giordano says the five-percent duty on unprocessed ham is against more than half of all U.S. sales to Mexico…
“So, you know, in terms of last year’s shipments, over 400 million worth of product, which previously was going in without a duty, now at 5%. The cooked skins, that was closer to about 2%...under 2%, of our value. So, smaller, but not insignificant.”
Doing the math - U.S. pork for sale in Mexico will be with almost 25-million dollars in new duties.
Giordano says it’s no coincidence the Mexicans are targeting U.S. pork and other sensitive products right before a key U.S. election. They want producers here squealing so U.S. officials hear them…
“The number one pork exporter in the world, Mexico accounts for about 20% of the volume of our exports, so it’s a number one volume market, and Japan is our number one value market, and last year Mexico probably accounted for about 4% of US production. So, it’s important to us, and I think from their vantage point in putting sectors like pork, and apples on the revised list is evidence of their desire to get some groups that have some political punch in the United States on the list.”
And Giordano promises Americans and their Representatives in Congress will hear a lot more from U.S. producers on the Mexican retaliation leading up to the November elections.
|