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Secretary Perdue hopes tariffs help NAFTA negotiations

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says he hopes President Donald Trump’s proposed steel and aluminum tariffs will help create a NAFTA agreement that benefits agriculture. “If this has an impact and it’s completing a beneficial NAFTA deal for the United States producers, then that’s a great result.”

And, on the possibility of re-joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Perdue says the U.S. is taking it seriously and would love to be involved, but as written, TPP doesn’t meet President Trump’s goals.  “He prefers bi-lateral deals rather than multi-lateral deals.  The other challenge to that process is the TPP was negotiated over a number of years and these other countries are not necessarily clawing to re-open these negotiations.”

TPP countries are moving ahead without the U.S., and there were no major developments announced after the last NAFTA discussions.  Several countries have said they will retaliate with tariffs of their own if Trump imposes the steel and aluminum tariffs.

Trump imposed the tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum for all countries except Mexico and Canada Thursday.