The National Chicken Council (NCC), along with four other meat and poultry producers and processing groups, thanked President Barack Obama for the administration’s efforts in the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in a letter delivered on Wednesday. In addition to NCC, the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, American Meat Institute, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the North American Meat Association signed the letter to the President.
The groups applauded the strong stance the administration has taken in negotiations with Japan on access to that nation’s market for U.S. meat and poultry exports. “We appreciate that, in the latest round of talks in Tokyo on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, your representatives did not capitulate to Japan’s continuing attempts to maintain protectionist barriers to our products,” the letter said
The letter also pointed out that “the ramifications of giving in to Japan’s desires to protect their agricultural products go well beyond our sector. A bad precedent with Japan could lead to future TPP-acceding nations such as China demanding massive exemptions from tariff elimination in industrial and high-tech products. This would be a damaging outcome for a wide swath of our nation’s commerce, agricultural and otherwise.”
“We look forward to a positive outcome in your negotiations that we can enthusiastically support in the congressional ratification process that will follow,” the letter concluded.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack were copied on the letter to President Obama.
