NAFTA timely topic at A&M beef conference

COLLEGE STATION — A top cattle industry official on Monday voiced optimism about the North American Free Trade Agreement’s future, but he did not discount concerns over the 24-year-old trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

“When we have all these trade issues, we have retaliation,” Randy Blach, CEO of data aggregator CattleFax, said on the opening day of the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course at Texas A&M University.

“I believe we’re going to get resolution on NAFTA in a year or two,” Blach told a group of about 2,000 agriculture professionals. “I’m optimistic that we’ll get some of these (trade disputes) worked out yet this calendar year as we go down the road.”

Tensions have risen between the NAFTA trading partners since President Donald Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs, effective June 1.

Canada retaliated by imposing its own tariffs on U.S. imports.

The latest negotiations over NAFTA began in August 2017, but Trump said last month that no deal would be made until after the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Blach cited CattleFax data that show a third of U.S. protein exports over the past five years went to Canada and Mexico.

“This is the key export markets that we’ve got to continue to have access to in order to have our markets move forward,” Blach said.

“This has been a strong, strong trend over the last three years.”

He also noted the United States imports more beef from Canada and Mexico than it exports to them.

“NAFTA has been wonderful for us in our agricultural markets,” he said. “NAFTA is not a big deal on beef. Straight up.”