Great Falls’ official has high hopes for USMCA
At the end of September 2018, Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico reached a new trade deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
This deal is not yet ratified, but it would effectively replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if all proceeds according to plan.
“A lot has changed over the years and NAFTA was due for a refresh,” said Brett Doney, President of the Great Falls, Montana Development Authority (GFDA).
Doney sees the new deal as an opportunity for businesses to build upon already existing partnerships, particularly in food, agriculture, and bioproducts. Doney also hopes that the USMCA settles current issues so that focus can switch back to long-term economic planning.
“We’ve had NAFTA for decades; now we have a new agreement that hopefully will have the same impact that NAFTA has,” Doney said. “It set the playing field for decades and it allowed for some long-term planning that had benefitted all countries involved. Now that we have this new agreement that is the refresh of NAFTA, we can really look at what can we work together on over the next 20 years that really benefits both sides of the border.”
Doney says that having this new agreement provides an opportunity to assist interested parties in taking the cultural product and working together to see value. Alberta, Doney says, has done a tremendous job in being an example of a place that carefully monitors food development throughout the province and does a great job in supporting the industry.
The Great Falls Development Authority has been working with several Canadian companies that are interested in either sourcing raw product from Montana or in expanding south instead of trucking the product long-distance to have processing operations close to the source of agricultural production.
Doney says that the trade agreement could also benefit farmers and ranchers, as the whole concept of looking at value-added agricultural processing could create manufacturing jobs and other jobs from those operations. Farmers and ranchers, Doney says, could also end up with more money in their pockets. Agriculture, according to Doney, has a concerning future because of world commodity prices and increased competition, so it is beneficial when opportunities within agriculture spring up.
“We see a tremendous amount of opportunity,” Doney said. “It’s a quadruple win because first off, it opens opportunities for farmers and ranchers to diversify at their transport cost and hopefully end up with more money and for their production. Second, we get the manufacturing jobs and that can be in smaller cities like Great Falls and Lethbridge that really depend on those manufacturing jobs. Third, we get all of the jobs. Fourth, it leads to more intensive agricultural production funding and ranchers have to buy more equipment. It really makes sense to us; it’s one of our strategic sectors that we focus a lot of effort on. We’re looking to diversify what’s grown and raised in Montana and we think that partnerships across border makes a lot of sense.”
Doney says that the impacts of the new trade deal will not be immediate, but that business plans can be formulated based on the information that is currently available. Doney is also hopeful that the available information will not deviate, thereby lessening the risk factors for businesses who want to make capital investments because of the new deal.
“Hopefully, there’s nothing in the details of the new deal that creates problems on either side of the borders,” Doney said.
Both Doney and his company would also personally like to see cross-border trading become easier in terms of staffing availability so that visitors and trucks hauling consumer goods can get through processing more quickly. While the government administration focused on formulating the new deal and working to make sure it would benefit as many as possible, locals like Doney focused their efforts more on the need to get things settled as quickly and effectively as possible.
“I know that every time there’s a change in things, it can create some challenges,” Doney said. “I know that we’re going to find things that we hadn’t thought about and hopefully, we’ll be dealing with mostly opportunities that we can help with, but it is important that small businesses that don’t have large staffs and experts know that we are working with them. I think we all need to be working to help them learn about what’s in the agreement, what those changes mean for their business and then help them to adapt.”
Although USMCA is still a very new deal, Doney is hopeful that the new agreement means that the government can now focus on settling things with other countries and reach agreements quickly with some of the country’s other trading partners.
“We can get back to trying to build and maintain close relationships,” Doney said. “I think that no matter where we are from, we see things alike and we are very practical people. We are all also very straight forward people; if we have differences, we sit down and talk deals based on handshakes and relationships.”