Rural Issue

NFU says TPP doesn’t address currency manipulation

National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson says the Trans-Pacific Partnership will mean gains for agriculture, however he’s still not sold on the agreement reached Monday.

“Our fear is that those gains for agriculture will be more than offset by the losses that occur because this agreement fails to deal with the issue of currency manipulation,” Johnson told Brownfield Ag News Tuesday.

Johnson says passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement led to Mexico devaluing the peso.  He says that more recently, Korea’s currency adjustment following the Korean Free Trade Agreement resulted in the loss of trade gains that had been promised.

“Keep in mind that no trade deal does everything,” President Obama told Brownfield Ag News Tuesday in response to hearing the NFU’s concerns.

“Currency is an issue that is an ongoing source of concern” said the President.  “Part of the authorizing legislation in [Trade Promotion Authority] that allows for us to punish countries that are engaging in currency manipulation, there’s legislation right now that’s sitting in Congress that we want to see passed.”

Without specific language in the TPP, however, the NFU’s Johnson says his organization’s stance will remain the same.

“We should have learned by now that we have got to deal with this issue of currency,” said Johnson, “and since we didn’t, in the TPP, in any meaningful way, deal with currency manipulation, we are simply going to be in the position of opposing the agreement.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership has to be ratified by the lawmaking bodies of all twelve of the participating countries.

AUDIO: Roger Johnson (8 min. MP3)

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