{"id":671,"date":"2020-04-08T14:01:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T18:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/?p=671"},"modified":"2020-04-08T14:06:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T18:06:12","slug":"nafta-and-usmca-deal-puts-florida-and-other-us-fruit-vegetable-and-citrus-industries-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/2020\/04\/08\/nafta-and-usmca-deal-puts-florida-and-other-us-fruit-vegetable-and-citrus-industries-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"NAFTA and USMCA deal puts Florida and other US Fruit, Vegetable, and Citrus industries at risk."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the surface the NAFTA and USMCA trade deal appears to\nhelp US Agriculture industries. Trump even tweeted that the new deal was \u201cGood\nfor everybody \u2013 Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are provisions in the USMCA deal to support\nDairy, sugar, syrups, cotton, animal feed, food preparation products, and chocolate\nit does nothing to protect fresh fruits and vegetables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many US Farmers feel the new USMCA deal failed to deliver\nand instead may have put the last nail in the coffin for many small Family run\nFarms. Just take a look around Florida. At one point in time Florida was\nconsidered the orange grove of the world. For many families the citrus and agriculture\nindustry fed and supported their families. Today Many Florida Groves and\nAgricultural properties are now residential neighborhoods and malls. Family run\nfarms are almost nonexistent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last decade the Florida Citrus and Agriculture industry has been financially impacted by heavy agricultural product imports from places like Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. For example: Imports of Blueberries have increased to nearly 60% of the total Blueberry market in 2018 and is only growing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the new trade deal will help control imports of some\nproducts the deal does not address imports such as fresh fruits and berries.\nMany countries like Mexico are able to flood the market with imports driving\ndown the price of berries to levels that are not sustainable by US based\ngrowers. Some US growers have started to take the mindset of \u201cif you can\u2019t beat\nthem join them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

US companies, farmers, and foreign investors are now\ninvesting in large Mexican Berry operations to take advantage of cheap labor,\nland, and no import fees. This is creating a very unfair playing field for US\nFarmers who have an overall higher cost of doing business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current COVID crisis in the US should be an eye opener\nfor Americans that we must not depend on foreign trade to survive. Now more\nthan ever the Trump administration should reevaluate the trade deals that have\na negative effect on US based operations. Especially rural America where Family\nFarms are the lifeblood of our food supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day the Trump administration needs to impose tariffs on fresh fruits and vegetables to protect American Farm operations. By imposing tariffs on fresh fruits and vegetables, imports of these products will be reduced and American Farmers will be given a level playing field to compete in the market. Ultimately the tariffs will allow the US Farm Industry to recover, build, and expand the very operations that feed our families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/ustr.gov\/trade-agreements\/free-trade-agreements\/united-states-mexico-canada-agreement\/agreement-between<\/a> https:\/\/ustr.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/files\/agreements\/FTA\/USMCA\/Text\/US_Tariff_Schedule_Appendix_1.pdf<\/a> https:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/data-products\/fruit-and-tree-nut-data\/data-by-commodity\/<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the surface the NAFTA and USMCA trade deal appears to help US Agriculture industries. Trump even tweeted that the new deal was \u201cGood for everybody \u2013 Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions. While there are provisions in the USMCA deal to support Dairy, sugar, syrups, cotton, animal feed, food preparation products, and chocolate it does nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,47],"tags":[176,173,77,177,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-agriculture","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-blueberries","10":"tag-citrus","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-fresh","13":"tag-nafta","14":"tag-usmca"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalbourbon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}