Going up or coming down?
Nov 02, 2021
WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, USA Rice formally submitted comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) regarding foreign trade barriers to U.S. rice exports. The industry overview is designed to aid the agency in formulating their 2022 National Trade Estimate Report (NTE), which will be published next spring.
Similar to what was submitted last year, USA Rice accounted for priority barriers to trade in 15 overseas markets. The USTR and sister agencies such as the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, State, and Treasury all review industry submissions and contribute to the comprehensive NTE report.
“While there is no real scenario where USA Rice is granted our entire wish list at once, we estimate that if all of our 2022 outlined trade barriers were resolved, in time, it could result in more than $850 million in additional export sales of U.S. rice,” said Sarah Moran, USA Rice vice president for international.
Much of the report zeroed in on the enforcement of free trade agreements, such as the Dominican Republic-Central America FTA, and ensuring that future multilateral or bilateral trade agreements provide commercially meaningful and significant improvements in market access for U.S. rice. The submission also focused on a range of maximum residue level concerns as food safety regulations begin to emerge as non-traditional barriers to trade in the European Union and throughout U.S. markets in Asia.
“We were sure to include our frustrations around Turkey’s continued ‘political’ ban on U.S. medium grain from the South under the guise of a phytosanitary issue and Colombia’s unwillingness to offer the sale of the U.S. rice quota certificates year-round,” said Moran.
Beyond the realm of the existing markets, USA Rice also took the opportunity to chastise India and China for their longstanding trade distorting domestic support programs, encouraging USTR to take swift action at the World Trade Organization to push China to comply with the terms of the two existing rice-related cases and to file a request for consultations with India.