Special Report

Doud says trade disputes won’t be resolved overnight

The chief ag trade negotiator for the U.S. says collateral damage to agriculture from trade disputes could get worse before it gets better.

Speaking at World Pork Expo, Gregg Doud said there are no silver bullet solutions to those disputes—and he warned more retaliation against U.S. ag exports is likely.

“This is going to get a little more difficult here in the short-term. There is, or will be, retaliation against U.S. agricultural exports because of what we’re doing in other areas unrelated to agriculture,” Doud said. “That retaliation is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood—depending on how you slice it and dice it—over 20-billion dollars of our 140 billion dollars in ag exports.”

Doud says the issues with China are “long-festering” and will take some time to resolve.

On NAFTA, he sounded a bit more optimistic.

“We’ve got to get the NAFTA thing sorted out,” Doud said. “We’re still working out the auto side of this, but NAFTA is certainly important to ag—it’s critical to ag—and we’ve got to get that worked out.

“But let’s be frank. The lead tip of the spear in this right now is your pork. You guys are probably being retaliated against in the pork industry more than any other commodity,” he said.

AUDIO: Excerpts from Gregg Doud’s speech at World Pork Expo