WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – U.S. chief agricultural commerce negotiator Doug McKalip desires China to maintain striving to satisfy U.S. farm items buy commitments beneath the 2020 “Part 1” commerce deal, however instructed Reuters that he is also pushing to diversify exports past the largest U.S. grain buyer.
In his first media interview on Thursday since his Dec. 23 Senate affirmation of his U.S. Commerce Consultant workplace publish, McKalip mentioned that his high precedence was opening new markets for U.S. agricultural merchandise.
“I feel for the American farmer, it is essential to have a various set of consumers on the market,” he mentioned. “We have to develop further markets.”
China will stay an essential high buyer, he mentioned, a day after U.S. Census Bureau commerce knowledge confirmed China reached a document $40.85 billion – practically a fifth of world U.S. farm exports that additionally reached a document $213 billion.
The acquisition values, aided by sharply larger grain costs due partially war-constrained provides from Ukraine, meant that China would have glad the 2020 goal outlined within the Trump administration’s Part 1 commerce deal – targets that China failed to achieve within the prior three years.
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“We might actually prefer to see their purchases be nearer to the highest numbers that they agreed to,” McKalip mentioned of China.
He added that USTR was “not asking for a favor. We’re simply asking them to do what they signed onto after they signed Part 1.”
NEW MARKETS, NEW PRODUCTS
Each continent has potential markets for U.S. row crops, grains and different staples, and the Ukraine warfare means demand for these will keep excessive, he mentioned, however there have been many different new export alternatives to pursue.
“I am inquisitive about specialty crops, organics, biofuels, all types of rising areas of U.S. agriculture that I feel are thrilling, and that I feel shoppers on the market need,” McKalip mentioned. “We simply want to ensure we’re ready the place different governments haven’t got obstacles” to such merchandise.
Southeast Asia represents an essential area to broaden U.S. farm exports, and McKalip mentioned he intends to work on lowering commerce obstacles by means of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Financial Framework negotiations.
Though the talks are usually not anticipated to end in any tariff reductions, McKalip mentioned that “regulator-to-regulator” discussions for enhancing requirements for utilizing land and water assets, conservation, and farm labor requirements will help degree the enjoying area in such talks.
McKalip additionally instructed Reuters that he has requested Mexico to clarify the science behind its genetically modified corn ban and that USTR additionally desires Canada to broaden U.S. entry to its dairy import quotas to resolve a second U.S. commerce problem.
Reporting by David Lawder
Modifying by Marguerita Choy
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