Farmscape for February 26, 2021

The Vice President of Canadian Global Affairs Institute expects the Joe Biden administration to revisit membership in the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership as it moves deeper into its mandate.
The National Pork Producers Council has identified lobbying for the United States to re-join the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership as one of its top priorities for this year.
Colin Robertson, the Vice President and a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, explains the Trans-Pacific Partnership was an initiative of the Obama administration from which the United States withdrew under Donald Trump after it was negotiated.

Clip-Colin Robertson-Canadian Global Affairs Institute:
In terms of the Biden administration, there's no word yet as to their intentions toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
My sense is that the first focus is going to be on domestic recovery from COVID and the trade policy will be something they look at probably into year three or four.
So much will depend on the mid-terms and what happens there, if the Democrats remain in control of the House of Representatives and sustain their majority in the Senate.
I wouldn't look for progress.
I think it is something the Biden administration would like to do for geostrategic reasons as much as the access it would give pork producers and other American agricultural interests who would like to preferred access that Canada enjoys, that Australia enjoys, that Mexico enjoys into that group of countries.
I think it will happen but I don't think it's going to happen right away.
I think that it's low on the list of the Biden administration priorities.
Before they do that, I suspect they'll do an interagency review and do their calculations.

I think they would lean that way for geostrategic reasons as a counter to China.
China has moved and is a member of one the newest plurilateral trade agreements, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

Robertson notes, as far as Canada is concerned, many of the provisions contained in the CPTPP were included as part of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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