American Soybean Association Secretary and Iowa soybean farmer Dave Walton testified before the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) during a public hearing today as part of the mandated six-year review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Walton emphasized the need for a full 16-year extension of the agreement and highlighted its critical role in providing stability and predictability for U.S. soybean farmers.

Walton noted that soybeans remain the nation’s largest agricultural export and that Canada and Mexico together purchased more than $4 billion in U.S. soybean and soy product exports last marketing year. He stressed that duty-free access to these markets is essential to the competitiveness of U.S. soy.

“USMCA has delivered stability, predictability, and modernized trade rules that are indispensable for agriculture,” Walton said during his testimony.

He further emphasized, “Soybean farmers are facing the most challenging landscape in a generation. Failure to renew USMCA would be catastrophic.”

During his testimony, Walton outlined several key priorities:

• Support for a full 16-year renewal of USMCA, including duty-free market access, the WTO-plus sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter, and an effective dispute settlement mechanism.
• Recognition of USMCA as the “gold standard” of agricultural trade due to its biotechnology and SPS provisions that prevent non-science-based trade barriers.
• Avoidance of new tariffs or retaliatory actions among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, which could further harm soybean farmers already facing challenges in other global markets.
• Opportunities for targeted improvements, such as aligning pesticide maximum residue limits (MRLs) with Codex standards, provided these do not delay or jeopardize renewal of the agreement.

“ASA strongly supports a full 16-year renewal of USMCA without delay, and our industry looks forward to working alongside USTR to accomplish this goal,” Walton concluded.

The full written comments submitted by ASA, jointly with the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC), are available here.