US tariffs threat ‘should not be underestimated’
A battle over financial support for an aircraft manufacturer could have drastic effects on Scottish agriculture if the United States does not roll back on its threat to impose hefty tariffs on many foodstuffs according to NFU Scotland.
There has been a long standing wrangle between the US and the EU over cheap loans to the Airbus company. This escalated this week with the US threatening to impose a 25 per cent import tariff on many food and drink products including whisky on the 18 October.
NFU Scotland’s combinable crops chairman, Ian Sands, who farms at Balbeggie near Perth and who is one of hundreds of Scottish barley growers supplying the whisky distillers said the scale of the impact of such a tariff could not be underestimated.
“Scotch whisky is the cornerstone of Scotland’s burgeoning food and drink sector and spring malting barley, the biggest crop grown in Scotland, is its key ingredient.
“Last year, maltsters bought almost 850,000 tonnes of Scottish malting barley, 96 per cent of which was spring barley, and equivalent to the production from around 150 thousand hectares.
“Given that the US is the biggest single market for Scotch whisky, it is imperative from a Scottish arable perspective that these damaging tariff proposals are scrapped and taken off the table in the next few weeks.”
Sands said NFU Scotland supported the Scotch Whisky Association in calling for immediate efforts to de-escalate this potential trade dispute.
Perhaps less obviously but possibly even more damaging a similar level of tariff could be levied on imports of pork into the US.
Reacting to this possibility, Union pigs committee chairman Jamie Wyllie said, “On paper, this looks like bad news. Exports from UK to the US are almost entirely fresh pork but most of it is top-end, high-value, high-welfare and outdoor-reared.
“Although exports to the States are only 5 per cent of the volume of total pork exports, it will be considerably higher in value.”
He pointed to another consequence from the threatened action. “The main companies involved in trading with the US are major players in Scotland and a genuine concern is that, without the trade dispute being de-escalated, demand for antibiotic-free, outdoor bred pigs and pig prices in general could be affected.
“It is ironic that, with good news on Scottish pigmeat exports to the Chinese market expected soon, we have a trade and tariff dispute around an area that is completely unrelated to food and farming, yet threatens all the good work that some Scottish producers have undertaken.”