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Nov 18, 2019
Washington, D.C. November 18, 2019. Soybean farmers are confident Congress can pass the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by year end. To encourage the process and show support of the agreement, farmer leaders from throughout the nation’s 30 soybean-producing states will converge on Capitol Hill Nov. 19 to request Congress keep moving the bill forward before its 2019 calendar is completed.
“Soybean farmers are clearly in a prolonged period of trade uncertainty. USMCA would assure we have stable, open access to Mexico and Canada, both vital markets for our crop,” said Bill Gordon, soybean farmer from Worthington, Minn., and vice president of the American Soybean Association (ASA).
Mexico is the #2 market for whole beans, meal and oil, and Canada is the #4 buyer of meal and #7 buyer of oil for U.S. soybean farmers, making the trade agreement essential to sustaining the growth realized in those two countries under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under NAFTA, U.S. soybean sales to Mexico quadrupled and to Canada doubled.
ASA and other agriculture groups continue to advocate online for #USMCAnow and hope that the growers’ outreach in person this week in D.C. will impress upon Congressional leaders the immediate need to ratify USMCA.
