Farmscape for March 2, 2017

The Chair of Manitoba Pork says changing U.S. trade policy will force Canada to revaluate its approach to trade.
Canada U.S. Trade under the Donald Trump administration and plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement was the focus of the "What's in it for U.S. Eh" seminar hosted earlier this week by the World Trade Centre Winnipeg.
George Matheson, the Chair of Manitoba Pork, says considering the changing U.S. attitude, moving forward Canada will need to shift its focus to bilateral trade.

Clip-George Matheson-Manitoba Pork:
It was a major disappointment that the Trans-Pacific Partnership could not be ratified by the U.S.
They were the main player, them and Japan, so without the U.S. in the picture it's not going to happen so just unilateral trade agreements will have to take place.
We've always had significant trade with Japan.
China, Korea, Vietnam, I see a great deal of opportunity there continued with Mexico.
We would like to it have been all encompassing with the many nations involved in the TPP but we will just have to take alternate avenues.
Mr. Trump is a businessman.
I can't help but think he knows that trade to and from the United States is important.
I don't think he's going to be to quick to change trade deals and be protectionist when it comes to U.S. trade.

Matheson says NAFTA has worked well, with the odd exception such as COOL which is no longer in place, so renegotiating that deal is cause for concern.
He notes Mexico is very much a part of NAFTA and the U.S. exports a significant amount of pork into Mexico so, if that relationship is jeopardized, it will affect the movement of pork out of the U.S. and, because Canadian selling prices for pork are based on the U.S. price, anything that affects the movement of U.S. pork will immediately impact Canadian prices.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork