It’s well-known by now that the U.S. didn’t agree to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement in its current form. That decision by the White House was met with disappointment among many of America’s key agricultural groups and stakeholders. Dr. Megan Roberts, an agricultural economist with Compeer Financial, said it’s disappointing because trade is vital to the success of U.S. agriculture.
“Mexico and Canada, on an annual basis, are continually our number one and two destinations for U.S. agricultural products, and that’s also true for products in the Upper Midwest. It might seem like Canada would be the obvious number one destination because of geography, but that isn’t necessarily the case. For U.S. dairy as a whole, Mexico is actually the most consistent dairy trade partner. In 2025, it was an export destination of $2.58 billion. We do see, for some of our dairy products in the Upper Midwest, we do, from that geography perspective, shift to Canada. For Wisconsin, it’s the number one destination of Wisconsin exports. For Minnesota, it’s number two.”
Despite the administration’s decision to not renew it, the agreement is still in place.
“We have had this in place since the first Trump administration, and this summer, particularly just a week ago, July one was the renewal and review date, and what was announced was that we’re going to move from a renewal to an annual review. So, USMCA is still in place, but we are now going through annual review processes, and that is maybe going to create a little more uncertainty on this agreement.”
Putting on her economist hat, Roberts talked about the potential impact on the U.S. farming community.
“Well, that might come down to your perspectives on overall trade, and so that I can’t answer from a personal perspective, but taking the politics out of it and really just focusing on the policy, if we look at the policy and the economic impacts of additional trade outlets for dairy products, for United States agricultural products, trade has been a positive for raising the overall price and the overall market, and maybe evening out some of the ups and downs for things like dairy, because we’ve had more places to export our products.”
The USMCA now goes to an annual review for ten years and will expire after a decade if it’s not renewed before then.
“It means that we’re going to see these trade discussions between our trade representatives in Canada, Mexico, and the United States continue. There is, instead of a longer-term agreement, they will be negotiating on a more regular basis. So, for some opinions, that’s really going to be a positive. Then, on the other side, there’s maybe less of that long-term certainty, because you have these annual discussions.”