Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Canadian tariffs hit U.S. farmers


 Canada’s tariffs imposed as punishment for U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum had their intended consequences in lowering U.S. farmers’ incomes, according to a new report from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


But they were compensated with new U.S. subsidies of $12 billion.


The agricultural products targeted for retaliation were valued at $30.4 billion in 2017. Individual product lines experiencing tariff increases ranging from two to 140 per cent.


Canada was not the only country to be granted World Trade Organization rights to impose retaliatory tariffs.


From mid-2018 to the end of 2019, the study estimated that retaliatory tariffs caused a drop of more than $27 billion (or annualized losses of $13.2 billion) in U.S. agricultural exports, with the largest decline in export losses occurring for exports to China.


At the commodity level, soybeans made up nearly 71 per cent ($9.4 billion of annualized losses) of the total, followed by sorghum (over six per cent or $854 million in annualized losses), followed by pork.


Pork producers were affected by retaliatory tariffs ranging from 10 to 30 per cent from Mexico and China, which together account for about 32 per cent of U.S. pork exports. Estimates are that, on average, U.S. pork exports to China decreased by 19 per cent in volume and 23 per cent in value because of retaliatory actions, whereas U.S. pork exports to Mexico decreased by 13 per cent in volume and 21 per cent in value.


In 2020, U.S. agricultural exports to China significantly rebounded following the signing of the U.S.-China Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement and a separate retaliatory tariff waiver program; however, one year after the deal, U.S. market share remained below pre-retaliatory tariff levels, the report said.