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FAS Administrator says now’s the time for TPA

Foreign Agricultural Service Administrator Phil Karsting says granting the president Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) will help the U.S. maintain its global agriculture trade status.  The last five years of U.S. agriculture exports Karsting calls remarkable.

“In Fiscal Year 2014 we exported $152.5 billion worth of agricultural goods from the United States,” Karsting told Brownfield Ag News.  “We want to maintain that momentum, and getting Trade Promotion Authority and sealing the deal on these trade deals is an important part of that.”

Karsting tells Brownfield that Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations are getting to what he calls the short strokes, meaning they’re nearing completion.  They’re at a point, he says, where any advantage is important.

“As with any negotiations, often the more difficult parts happen toward the end, and one way to strengthen our negotiators in this is to signal to the negotiating that we’re serious and one way to do that would be for Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority,” said Karsting.

There’s opposition to granting Trade Promotion Authority, primarily among Congressional Democrats, but Karsting says every president since Gerald Ford has had TPA.

Karsting hesitates to put a timeline on TPP negotiations, but he expresses hope that they won’t take long.

“Hopefully we would have something done in the next several months.”

AUDIO: Phil Karsting (5 min. MP3)