The Trump administration is gearing up to being renegotiating the North American Free Trade Act better known as NAFTA. Last week we had our first look at what the negotiations might look like. Jim Holte the president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation joined Bryant to talk about how these negations affect WI producers specifically.
Holt was quick to point out just how important trade was for Wisconsin and how twenty to thirty percent of our goods are exported and how Mexico and Canada are some of our biggest customers. Holte explained that the most important point of the NAFTA agreement includes the continuing ability to move our products around the world without large tariffs. Holte then explained how dairy is on the top of “our Wisconsin agenda” and we would like to see more US products moving into those markets.
Canada takes certain steps to “protect” their dairy industry and we want sure up the agreements that we already have and look at language that is used in the agreement to settle any discrepancies that we may be seeing now and in the future.
When asked about when the talks would begin and the timeline associated with the renegotiations Holte said, “there are so many moving parts, and this is a complex deal that will take some time to get worked out, there is a lot of important issues to be worked out, while we all want a speedy process, this is going to take some time.”
Click Link below to listen to Bryant and WI Farm Bureau President Jim Holte
