Darci Vetter
The Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Farm Policy Summit, which began Monday and goes through Wednesday in Little Rock, has brought farmers, ranchers and national farm policy leaders together to discuss challenges facing the agriculture economy.
Ambassador Darci Vetter, the chief agricultural negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative, will be at the event. She speaks at 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, and will focus on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Signed Feb. 4 in New Zealand after seven years of negotiations, the trade agreement covers 12 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam. It seeks to lower trade barriers and promote economic growth among its members.
Vetter said the agreement means $4.4 billion in farmer income every year. She said every major U.S. commodity will see an increase in prices as demand rises in new markets the deal will open to U.S. exports.
But the TPP has its share of critics, including most of the major Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, who have said the agreement could cost American jobs, harm consumers and even affect U.S. immigration law.
The deal, signed last month by the president, must still be approved by Congress.
Arkansas Business spoke with Vetter about the TPP and the politics of the agreement last week. Her responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Arkansas Business: What will your message be to attendees at the Farm Policy summit?
Darci Vetter: I’ll be at the summit primarily with a message about the important opportunities offered by the Trans-Pacific Partnership and what the benefits will be for Arkansas agriculture and for agriculture across the nation to enact the agreement as soon as possible.
AB: Why is the TPP beneficial for Arkansas?
DV: It’s the highest standard free trade agreement in history … There are 12 countries at the table who have committed to this agreement that represent 40 percent of global GDP. And it has a unique combination of countries.
You have countries like Japan, which are high value countries — high income. They buy our highest value products; they have been long-time good customers of ours; they’re our number one market for beef and pork, for example …
You also have new access to countries like Vietnam and Malaysia — some of the most dynamic markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam alone has 90 million consumers; the population of Vietnam is rising rapidly and the percentage of that population that is joining the middle class is also rising rapidly. So right now we send a lot of primary goods to Vietnam: soybeans, corn, our feed grains for their livestock industry; we send basic products like soy milk powder.
But when people join the middle class they radically change what they eat, and they go from worrying about getting enough calories to thinking about the quality of those calories and, in particular, they demand more protein …
Because they have limited land, they’re going to buy directly from us those protein products: our meat, our beef, pork poultry, dairy products. And we will have the opportunity to ship in those products and really become their supplier of choice. That’s true for Vietnam and Malaysia in particular.
AB: Trade is a hot topic in the presidential election right now, and both parties’ frontrunners have come out against the TPP. What’s the future of this deal if the next president is against it?
DV: It really depends what we do this year. There is ample time this year for Congress to consider and pass this agreement, and the next step would be for that new administration, whoever is at the helm, to implement those commitments according to Congress’ instruction. And so that’s really what we are aiming to do, is to make sure this agreement passes this year and gains congressional approval …
I think sometimes with the idea of trade agreements, the agreements themselves become the target of a general angst or anxiety about globalization as a whole. I think it’s important to remember the countries who are willing to take on the high standards — to meet certain labor and environmental requirements, to protect our intellectual property, to lower their tariff — they’re doing some hard things to get that access to our market, and were getting access to their markets at the same time.
AB: Ron Kirk, the former U.S. Trade Representative, was in Little Rock last week and called the TPP the most “progressive” trade deal the U.S. has ever been apart of. Would you agree with that? Why?
DV: Absolutely. It has the highest standards, in terms of labor protections, that countries have to meet as any agreement that has been negotiated in the past. It has the most robust environment chapter.
The TPP countries pledge to look at those environmental issues that are directly impacted by trade. If you look at the Asia-Pacific region, that’s where a lot of the trade in illegal wildlife and wildlife trafficking happens. Some of the ports in that region of the world have been hubs for the transfer of illicit timber, illegally harvested timber.
For a state like Arkansas, the foresters in your state are having to compete with illegally logged timber from China. If we can cooperate with the customs officials and the environment officials in Vietnam and Malaysia to stop the transfer and sales of that timber, you’re not only saving the forest in places where it’s being illegally harvested, but you’re allowing those who are harvesting timber in Arkansas and elsewhere to compete with other legal products and not be undercut by those illicit goods.
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