The USDA hosted a trade mission to Argentina and Ecuador. Luke Lindberg, the Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, led the mission and was impressed by the opportunities in both markets.
“The two markets are pretty different in some respects, similar in others. The Argentine market is both a competitor and a partner of ours. And we compete certainly on things like soybean meal exports all around the world. But the Argentines also look at the world similarly in terms of how we have a scientific basis for production agriculture. So, we had some very productive conversations about ways we can work together, but also the agriculture associations, the cooperators, the agribusinesses that joined us on this mission were looking to take advantage of some of these significant reductions in tariffs and other things negotiated into the agreement with Argentina. On the Ecuador front, a lot more complementarity with Ecuador. We have certainly different markets. They produce things like citrus fruits, which we produce as well, different seasons there, but they produce things like coffee and cocoa beans that we don’t often produce in the United States, bananas being another big one there in Ecuador. And so, we had some great conversations about ways we can work together to make sure that the bounty of both of our countries’ harvests find their way to the other country’s consumers and their kitchen tables.”
USDA led the mission to help convert recent reciprocal trade agreements into lasting commercial trading wins for U.S. agriculture.
“The Argentine agreement was a great one in that it makes sure that Argentina cannot restrict access for certain geographical indicators for us on meat and cheese items. Argentina is the largest per capita consumer of meat products in the world. And so, we certainly want to be able to sell those products down to Argentina as part of this agreement and look forward to those opportunities. Also, they’re tearing down some of their historic facility registration requirements that have hurt U.S. dairy exporters, for example, quite significantly. And so, our Dairy Export Council was with us and looking at opportunities in that space to take advantage of new opportunities down in Argentina, as well as our tree nuts. Folks were down there with us also, and some of our livestock genetic exporters. We had a visit to a local ranch down there that’s importing horse genetics from the United States. It’s a great business for some of our horse breeders here in the United States.”