U.S. President Donald Trump presided over a White House signing ceremony on Monday for the final text of the limited bilateral trade pact, more then 2-1/2 years after he pulled the United States out of the much broader TPP.

The move left U.S. farmers and food producers at a disadvantage in the Japanese market to competitors from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and the U.S.-Japan deal aims to even that playing field by cutting Japanese tariffs on many of those products.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said the pact would immediately eliminate Japan’s tariffs on U.S. food and agricultural imports valued at about $1.3 billion per year, including almonds, blueberries, cranberries, walnuts, sweet corn, lactose, milk albumin, grain sorghum, food supplements, broccoli and prunes (all figures US$).

It said an additional $3 billion worth of products would benefit from staged tariff elimination, matching access conditions in the TPP. That group includes processed pork, beef offal, frozen poultry, wine, frozen potatoes, oranges, fresh cherries, cheese and whey, ethanol, egg products and tomato paste.

The deal will restore a country-specific tariff free quota for U.S. wheat that will grow to 150,000 tonnes over six years, matching TPP, and Japan will reduce its markup on imported U.S. wheat by 45 per cent to the same levels as TPP countries.

Barley will see access to Japan partially restored to TPP levels with a 45 per cent reduction in markup over eight years, and Japan will establish new country-specific quotas for U.S. unroasted malt. But the deal does not provide the United States access to a TPP-wide quota that grows to 65,000 tons over nine years.

— Reporting for Reuters by David Lawder.

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U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi reached the deal in Washington on Friday, with Tokyo cutting tariffs on U.S. beef but Washington maintaining tariffs on Japanese autos, Nikkei said.

The newspaper did not cite any sources for its information.

The results of the Lighthizer-Motegi talks will be announced at a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expected on Sunday on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, the Nikkei said.

The report came shortly after Motegi told reporters in Washington that he and Lighthizer had made “big progress.”

Motegi said the three-day talks that ended on Friday would probably be the last ministerial-level discussions and working-level officials would continue to hammer out on details.

Japan will cut its tariffs on U.S. beef and pork to the levels applied to members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, the Nikkei said. Trump pulled America out of the TPP, which had been championed by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

The United States will not cut the 2.5 per cent tariff it applies on Japanese autos for now but separate talks on those would continue, the Nikkei reported. It said Washington was “moving in the direction” of scrapping tariffs on some of the 400 types of Japanese car parts that Tokyo is seeking.

Trump and Abe may sign the pact in late September if they can reach a final deal, the Nikkei said. They were expected to meet then on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“I think how we proceed the talks from now on, and the time schedule, will be announced at the summit meeting scheduled in Biarritz,” Motegi said.

He said Abe and Trump would confirm the progress that was made at the ministerial meetings and decide how to proceed.

“We have been making efforts to narrow gaps,” Motegi said.

“We negotiated to protect Japan’s position, our position on agriculture,” he said.

Japanese officials had previously said Tokyo could cut tariffs to TPP levels but no further.

Motegi and Lighthizer initially planned two days of talks but negotiations extended to a third day on Friday in an effort to narrow differences on areas such as agriculture and automobiles.

Trump is unhappy with Tokyo’s large trade surplus and he could pile pressure on Japan to curb its auto exports to the United States and open its highly protected agriculture market to fix what he calls unfair trade imbalances.

Motegi declined to comment on details but said the negotiations were based on the two nations’ joint statement in September.

Trump will talk to his counterparts during his visit to France about how to open up their markets to ensure U.S. businesses have avenues to sell goods and services.

The United States and China are also engaged in an expensive trade dispute that has disrupted financial markets worldwide.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo, David Lawder, Andrea Shalal and Jonas Ekblom in Washington and Chizu Nomiyama in New York.

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New quotas created by the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are similar to those meant to give U.S. dairy and poultry farmers new access to Canada under the new North American trade agreement known as USMCA.

The rules, which lay out who can receive quotas to import some agricultural products duty-free from countries that ratify the deal, vary between products, but in some categories nearly all the quotas are earmarked for Canadian processors. One quota covering “cheeses of all types” reserves 85 per cent for processors, leaving 15 per cent for distributors.

Saputo, one of Canada’s biggest processors, welcomed the move and said in a statement on Tuesday that processors will get a “significant portion” of the quotas.

“I am delighted with the allocation. I think that the government is allowing the dairy industry to control our own destiny,” Saputo CEO Lino Saputo Jr. told Reuters. “This is what we were hoping for.”

It is not the first time Canada has taken the unusual step of giving local producers special rights to import, easing the pain of new competition.

Karl Littler, spokesman for the Retail Council of Canada, said the allocation looks like a subsidy.

“We find that, obviously, to be less than ideal, given that people buy their cheese from us, not from the producers,” he said.

Saputo Jr. said the quota is not a subsidy, but dairy farmers, and not processors, should be compensated over recent trade deals.

In 2017, a last-minute dispute over how Canada would allocate cheese import quotas sent the country back into negotiations with the European Union over the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

European cheesemakers were unhappy with a plan to give Canadian processors 60 per cent of the new quota. In a compromise, they received 50 per cent.

In the first full year with the new quotas in force, Canadian imports have been sluggish.

Saputo Jr., who said his company has used all of its CETA quota, noted that 60 per cent of the quota was set aside for small companies, something that was eliminated for CPTPP.

The way the CETA quota was fragmented between many companies has made it difficult to import profitably, Reuters reported in September.

In the notice, federal officials promised a “broad-based stakeholder engagement exercise” in the new year to review all of Canada’s import quotas, as new trade deals expand their use.

— Allison Martell is a reporter in Reuters’ Toronto bureau.

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There is no shortage of work to be done on the trade front. A priority for the CCA is to ensure the timely ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). I was present in Santiago, Chile, for the CPTPP signing ceremony. It was quite something to witness International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne sign the agreement along with his counterparts from the other 10-member countries. This was a remarkable moment for Canadian beef producers; in fact, a game changer, as the CPTPP enables competitive access to Japan, Vietnam and other dynamic markets in the Asia-Pacific region, provided Canada implements the agreement quickly.

All that’s required for the agreement to come into force is for six of the 11 signatories to complete their domestic ratification procedures. CCA is advocating to the government that Canada must pass legislation quickly to be among the first six to ratify or we will be at a serious disadvantage. The race to ratification is already on — at a news conference following the signing ceremony, Mexico indicated it is slated to introduce a bill by April 30; Chile, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia indicated by year-end, a time frame that’s feasible also for Australia and New Zealand. Canada has said it will implement the CPTPP “expeditiously,” and Minister Champagne had previously pointed to the fall in terms of a timeline.

While in Chile, I impressed upon the minister the urgency for Canada to ratify the CPTPP or risk being left at the starter’s gate. There is plenty at stake; a recent analysis from the Government of Canada indicates that without the U.S., CPTPP is expected to increase Canadian beef exports by $380 million. This is a 90 per cent increase from the $200 million earlier estimated for the original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which included the U.S.

Once the CPTPP is implemented, Canadian beef will immediately be imported into Japan at the same preferential tariff as Australian beef. Fortunately, on April 1, Japan removed its 50 per cent safeguard tariff on frozen beef that had been in place since July 2017, but until CPTPP is implemented we are at risk of the safeguard being reinstated. With the CPTPP, Canada will be exempt from future applications of Japan’s beef safeguard tariff.

Importantly, in a time of growing anti-globalization sentiment internationally, CPTPP countries have demonstrated a commitment to deepening regional trade and integration. This will be the key to trade, as CPTPP members envision that additional countries could join the agreement.

Indeed, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have already expressed various levels of interest in joining the CPTPP. Should Korea formally initiate negotiations to join the CPTPP, the CCA would insist that Canada seek acceleration of Korea’s beef tariff phaseout to match the U.S.’s access (under the 2013 U.S.-Korea FTA) as a condition of Korea’s entry. Under the terms of the 2014 Canada-Korea FTA, the 40 per cent Korean tariff on fresh and frozen beef will be fully eliminated in 15 equal annual steps, and the 18 per cent tariff on offals will be fully eliminated in 11 equal annual steps.

CCA representatives were in Mexico City for round seven of the North American Free Trade (NAFTA) renegotiation discussion, the latest in the series to modernize and renegotiate NAFTA. Subjects of concern to beef producers include tariffs, rules of origin, dispute settlement mechanisms, regulatory practices (both technical barriers and sanitary phyto-sanitary requirements), government procurement and review versus sunset for NAFTA. There has been good exploratory discussion amongst the negotiating teams and while other issues remain unresolved, common ground is being sought.

Overall, round seven had positive discussions and the hope is that progress will continue into round eight, to be held in the U.S. in early April. Of course, that timeline would extend the negotiations beyond the notional deadline of March 31. As we have seen time and again in previous negotiations, deadlines can come and go, but if progress is being made, the parties are likely to continue to meet with a view to reaching an agreement.

While the uncertainty around NAFTA is bound to continue, it’s important to focus on opportunity for Canada’s beef sector. The CPTPP is just the start; bringing the market access terms of the CPTPP into effect will mean more money in the pockets of farmers, and in turn the Canadian economy.

Of course, we also have potential to realize under the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade agreement with Europe as well as massive potential in China. Resources for producers wanting to learn how their cattle can become EU eligible can be found on the CCA website.

Trade deals like the CPTPP benefit the entire Canadian agriculture sector and the economy, helping to secure a truly sustainable future for the beef industry.

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Republican senators met with Trump on Thursday and he told them that he has asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow to re-open negotiations.

“The president has consistently said he would be open to a substantially better deal, including in his speech in Davos earlier this year,” Walters said.

The TPP had aimed to cut trade barriers in some of the fastest-growing economies of the Asia-Pacific region and to counter China’s rising economic and diplomatic clout. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact in early 2017, citing concerns about jobs.

Even prior to Trump’s official withdrawal, U.S. participation in the pact was dead due to opposition in the U.S. Congress. The U.S. entered the TPP negotiations in 2008 and took until late 2016 for the then-Obama administration to abandon its attempt to push the pact through Congress.

“It is good news that today the president directed Larry Kudlow and Ambassador Lighthizer to negotiate U.S. entry into TPP,” Senator Ben Sasse, a pro-trade Republican, said in a statement after the meeting between Trump and the senators.

At his Senate confirmation hearing for the post of Trump’s next secretary of state, CIA director Mike Pompeo was asked about reports that Trump planned to re-engage on TPP and replied: “That news was news to me.”

However, Pompeo said he had supported TPP as a member of Congress and added: “There is an economic component to what China is trying to do. We need to be engaged. There is a diplomatic component to the economic activity as well. We need to be deeply engaged there, and I’m confident this administration will do that.”

Since the U.S. withdrew from the TPP talks, the other 11 countries have forged ahead with their own agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and in the process eliminated chapters on investment, government procurement and intellectual property that were key planks of Washington’s demands.

The CPTPP includes Mexico and Canada, which are renegotiating the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.

When asked to comment on Thursday’s comments on the TPP, a Canadian government official said there had not been any formal outreach so it was not possible to speculate on what a new pact would look like.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet Trump next week. Japan, a close U.S. ally, also signed up for the 11-country CPTPP.

During his election campaign in 2016, Trump was frequently skeptical of the value of multilateral trade pacts, arguing instead that bilateral deals could offer better terms.

But Trump is struggling to get support from other countries for his recent threat to impose import tariffs on China and the U.S. farm lobby is arguing that retaliation by China would hit American agricultural exports.

— Reporting for Reuters by David Chance, Patricia Zengerle and David Brunnstrom in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa.

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The deal came as U.S. President Donald Trump vowed earlier in the day to press ahead with a plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a move that other nations and the International Monetary Fund said could start a global trade war.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will reduce tariffs in countries that together amount to more than 13 per cent of the global economy — a total of US$10 trillion in gross domestic product. With the U.S., it would have represented 40 per cent.

“Today, we can proudly conclude this process, sending a strong message to the international community that open markets, economic integration and international cooperation are the best tools for creating economic opportunities and prosperity,” said Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

Heraldo Munoz, Chile’s minister of foreign affairs, said he expected Chile’s trade with China, its top trading partner, to continue growing alongside trade with CPTPP countries.

Even without the U.S., the deal will span a market of nearly 500 million people, making it one of the world’s largest trade agreements, according to Chilean and Canadian trade statistics.

The original 12-member agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was thrown into limbo early last year when Trump withdrew from the deal three days after his inauguration. He said the move was aimed at protecting U.S. jobs.

The 11 remaining nations finalized a revised trade pact in January. That agreement will become effective when at least six member nations have completed domestic procedures to ratify it, possibly before the end of the year.

“We are very hopeful like others that we will see the CPTPP coming into effect about the end of the year or shortly thereafter,” said Australia Trade Minister Steven Ciobo.

Canadian commodity and industry groups on Thursday hailed the signing. Chris White, CEO of the Canadian Meat Council, said the council is “confident that this deal has the potential to increase beef and pork sales by at least $1 billion, creating the potential to support an over 11,000 new jobs” in Canada.

For the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, representing groups in several exporting sectors, “the big prize” in CPTPP membership is access to Japan, a “high-value and stable market for agrifood products, importing $4 billion of Canadian agrifoods every year.”

The deal also affords Canadian agrifood exporters “a competitive advantage in the (CPTPP) region over the U.S., since it is not part of the agreement,” CAFTA said.

Grain Growers of Canada, among others, urged the Canadian government to be among the first six to ratify the deal, as “being part of the first wave will ensure that Canada can take full advantage of the initial round of tariff cuts.”

Noting the CPTPP countries make up nearly 27 per cent of Canada’s wheat export market, Kevin Bender, chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission said the deal will also “ensure that Canada isn’t losing market share to our main competitors within the CPTPP zone.”

The Canola Council of Canada noted that when tariffs are “fully eliminated” in Japan and Vietnam over five years, exports of Canadian canola oil and meal to those countries could increase by up to $780 million per year.

Markus Haerle, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, noted the deal “covers three important export markets for food-grade soybeans” — specifically, Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia — “and will improve access to pursue further growth.”

Cam Dahl, president of Cereals Canada, said the deal’s “benefits and influence are also expected to grow as potential new entrants such as Indonesia seek to join.”

GFO, Haerle added, “would like to see the agreement ratified without any non-tariff barriers inserted and to see a similar agreement with China get underway.”

‘The way forward’

The revised agreement eliminates some requirements of the original TPP demanded by U.S. negotiators, including rules to ramp up intellectual property protection of pharmaceuticals. Governments and activists of other member nations worry the changes will raise the costs of medicine.

The final version of the agreement was released in New Zealand on Feb. 21. The member countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

“We’re proud … to show the world that progressive trade is the way forward, that fair, balanced, and principled trade is the way forward, and that putting citizens first is the way forward for the world when it comes to trade,” Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne said.

In January, Trump, who also has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that it was possible Washington might return to the TPP pact if it got a better deal. However, New Zealand’s trade minister said that was unlikely in the near term, while Japan has said altering the agreement now would be very difficult.

On Thursday, Munoz said CPTPP was not an agreement against anyone and several governments had said they want to join it.

Trump vowed on Thursday to impose a 25 per cent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports, although he said there would be exemptions for NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada.

He announced the plan for tariffs last week, rattling financial markets.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, in Santiago for the CPTPP signing, told Reuters he would not allow the U.S. to use the tariffs to pressure it in the NAFTA talks. Champagne told Reuters that Canada would not accept duties or quotas from the U.S.

— Reporting for Reuters by Dave Sherwood and Felipe Iturrieta; writing by Dave Sherwood and Caroline Stauffer. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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“Because of the NAFTA negotiations going on, we have to be careful what we say publicly,” MacAulay said at the Dairy Farmers of Canada policy conference this week in Ottawa, after multiple questions on trade policy from farmers.

“I’ve been quite clear and publicly said what I thought about what they put on the table. What Americans put on the table is a non-starter,” he said.

The U.S. proposal on supply management was to dismantle the system over the next decade. The Liberal government has repeatedly supported the maintenance of supply management, but has not been willing to guarantee access to the Canadian dairy market will not be granted under a new NAFTA.

The current NAFTA does not include dairy products.

Dairy farmers pushed MacAulay on NAFTA because of U.S. threats and the recent agreement that Canada would join the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

When the original Trans-Pacific Partnership was negotiated, the U.S. was also involved and were part of the 3.25 per cent access provided to Canada’s dairy market for TPP countries. The new agreement didn’t include the U.S., as President Donald Trump withdrew from the pact.

However, the 3.25 per cent access remains for CPTPP countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which previously would have had to share the 3.25 per cent with the U.S.

Thus, if there’s access to the Canadian dairy market negotiated under NAFTA, dairy farmers will lose more market share than they expected to the U.S. under CPTPP.

Ralph Dietrich, chair of Dairy Farmers of Ontario, told MacAulay he agreed with the minister’s remarks that dairy farming is a great industry and it has a bright future, “but the way for that to continue is to tell the U.S. to go through the CPTPP.”

MacAulay also refused to say if the government would have a program to help dairy farmers adjust to increased imports under CPTPP, as it did under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada.

MacAulay highlighted the $250 million for producers and $100 million for processors in the CETA adjustment fund. He said 500 projects have been approved worth $23.5 million.

There needs to be more industry consultation before a CPTPP adjustment program is created, MacAulay said.

“We will come up with a program that will make the dairy industry stronger than it has ever been. For me to just tell you that I’m going to have the solution right here and now, it would be totally inappropriate,” he said.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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“In D.C. it’s chaotic. It’s the craziest situation I’ve ever seen, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot… I do think the U.S. is behaving so badly that it’s going to create opportunities for Canadian agriculture,” Hayes said Wednesday during Keystone Agricultural Producers’ (KAP) annual meeting.

Immediately after Trump took office last year he pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On Tuesday it was announced the TPP’s remaining 11 nations, including Canada, had reached a deal and would sign it in March.

According to Hayes, this is going to give Canada a leg up on the U.S. for the foreseeable future — even if the U.S. has a change of heart.

“Is it in Canada’s best interest to allow the U.S. back in (to TPP), given that they would have preferential access to Japan and Vietnam? I suspect that the damage is permanent, that the U.S. will never be able to get back into TPP,” he said.

North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations are ongoing as well and for Canadian agriculture it might not be the worst thing if it doesn’t work out. According to Hayes, it could lead to Canada receiving preferential access to Mexican markets.

“In the commodity business you can’t pay a 20 per cent duty if the Mexican producers are paying a duty and if the Canadian producers are not paying a duty. Again there could be opportunities here for Canada to the detriment of U.S.,” he said.

There is a plethora of opportunities for Canada trade-wise as the U.S. digs itself into a deeper hole, according to Hayes. During the KAP presentation he praised the Canadian government’s current approach to trade agreements.

“One of the things I’ve noticed is as bad as U.S. trade policy is right now, Canada has actually got some rational trade policies. You’re cutting a European free trade agreement, a bilateral potential free trade agreement with Japan,” he said.

For Canada there is potential for more trade opportunities, Hayes expects demand to grow from densely populated Asian countries such as China.

China has become a wealthy nation and is now paying attention to policies such as animal welfare and cleaning up its environment. It’s become a “rich country with rich country’s desires,” Hayes said.

Producers in China used to raise their own individual pigs and grow small crops, but its agriculture has modernized with larger operations. According to Hayes, China will soon begin to realize farming crops such as soybeans with manual labour on its mountainous terrain isn’t productive and it should switch to growing fruit and importing other crops to be more profitable.

This should have Canada thinking of trying to make a trade deal with China, according to Hayes.

“If (Canada) can get rid of those duties going into China and especially if other countries do not have that access it could revolutionize (Canada). I’ve seen it in Australia. I’ve seen it in New Zealand. When China starts to buy your product you become prosperous.”

If Canada does continue to take advantage of these trade opportunities in a few years it will give the agriculture industry a leg up against its U.S. counterparts, according to Hayes.

“I think the U.S. will recognize eventually that not participating in these agreements is against its long-run best interest, but that’s not the case right now,” he said.

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow her at @ashleymr1993 on Twitter.

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Chicken Farmers of Canada on Wednesday said the CPTPP deal, on which Canada pledged Tuesday it will sign in March, still includes concessions on market access for chicken products in response to U.S. demands.

Canada granted those concessions in 2016 coming out of negotiations for the original Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, before the U.S. withdrew from the 12-country agreement early last year, CFC said.

With the U.S. out of the partnership, the group said, “those concessions should have been taken off the table.

“This is especially true since none of the other partners have provided anything in exchange for this increased access to the Canadian chicken market.”

Other CPTPP signing nations include Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam along with Canada’s other existing free-trade partners, Mexico, Chile and Peru.

Specifically, CFC said, CPTPP access represents an additional 2.1 per cent of Canadian production that will be imported, on top of Canada’s existing commitments of 7.5 per cent, for a total of 9.6 per cent.

Turkey Farmers of Canada said Thursday the CPTPP translates to a 71 per cent increase in import access to the Canadian turkey market, worth “$270 million in lost farm cash receipts over the next 19 years, and a farm output loss of at least 4.5 per cent.”

Egg Farmers of Canada said the deal, once fully implemented, will cost its members the right to produce almost 291 million dozen eggs, plus 19 million dozen additional eggs each year after the implementation phase. Egg farmers stand to lose $1 billion in income, the group said.

“We need to make it clear that we have reached the limit of what we can give in any future negotiations,” CFC chair Benoit Fontaine said in a release Wednesday, referring in part to the current round of North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations in Montreal.

“If the U.S. wants access to our market, for example, they are welcome to rejoin the CPTPP.”

Dairy Farmers of Canada, which on Tuesday cited reports that dairy market access provisions from the original TPP deal would remain in the CPTPP pact, described NAFTA as “another vehicle that threatens to weaken the Canadian dairy industry.”

The federal government, DFC said, “must realize that there is a cumulative effect to these (market) carve-outs, which cannot be understated.”

“Our message to the Canadian government as it is negotiating NAFTA is simple: no more concessions — enough is enough, they cannot continue to carve out portions of the dairy sector,” DFC president Pierre Lampron said in a release.

CFC on Wednesday also called on Ottawa to start delivering on its commitments it made in October 2015 at the conclusion of TPP talks, including support programs and anti-circumvention measures relating to chicken.

Among those measures, the group said, were pledges to address mislabeled broiler chicken imported as spent fowl and the addition of sauce to circumvent import quotas.

The government also pledged at that time, CFC noted, for dairy, poultry and egg tariff lines subject to tariff rate quotas (TRQs) to be excluded from the Canada Border Services Agency’s Duties Relief Program (DRP).

“Increased access to the Canadian chicken market, especially without gaining something in return, is going to impact jobs from coast to coast,” Fontaine said. “These programs will help lessen the damage being done by the giving away of our market access.”

Canadian poultry and egg producer groups and related companies last week released a study by PwC Canada which warned that dropping Canada’s supply management system could pare the Canadian chicken market’s value by 40 to 70 per cent along with “most” of the Canadian turkey industry.

Dairy farmer co-operative Agropur last week cited a 2015 study by Boston Consulting Group forecasting similar losses, finding 4,500 to 5,000 farms or 40 per cent of production would be at risk if supply management were to end, due to raw milk price convergence with U.S. levels.

The 2015 study also forecast about 40 per cent of processing, largely in consumer dairy products such as cheese, yogurt and butter, would be at risk of shifting to countries with lower processing costs such as the U.S., New Zealand and the European Union, “with no guarantee of lower prices for consumers,” Agropur said. — AGCanada.com Network

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Trade officials had been meeting in Tokyo to resolve rifts including Canada’s insistence on protections for its cultural industries such as movies, TV and music.

An agreement is a win for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, which has been lobbying hard to save the pact, originally called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In one of his first acts as U.S. president in January 2017, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the original 12-nation treaty.

Abe has painted the deal as a spur to growth and reform in Japan and a symbol of commitment to free and multilateral trade at a time when Trump stresses “America First” policies.

A Canadian government source confirmed Ottawa would sign on to what’s called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), saying it had “secured real gains.”

“We are happy to confirm the achievement of a significant outcome on culture as well as an improved arrangement on autos with Japan, along with the suspension of many intellectual property provisions of concern to Canadian stakeholders,” Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Tuesday in a statement.

Champagne and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay, in a separate statement later Tuesday, said the deal “will give the Canadian agricultural industry preferential access to all CPTPP countries and will provide new market access opportunities for a wide range of Canadian products, including meat, grains, pulses, maple syrup, wines and spirits, seafood and agri-food products.”

“The agreement reached in Tokyo today is the right deal,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Our government stood up for Canadian interest and this agreement meets our objectives of creating and sustaining growth, prosperity and well paying middle class jobs today and for generations to come.”

‘Comforted’

Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Dan Darling hailed Tuesday’s announcement as an “extremely positive development for Canada’s entire beef sector.”

The CCA noted Canadian beef, once a TPP deal is implemented, will “enjoy a competitive advantage” over U.S. beef in Japan, entering that country at the same preferential tariff rate as Australian beef.

The Canadian Pork Council said Tuesday that producers “can be comforted in knowing that Canadian pork will have competitive access to key markets such as Japan, and developing markets such as Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.”

Canadian pork exports to nine of the pact’s 10 member countries in 2016 totalled 380,000 tonnes, worth over $1.4 billion, the council said.

The Canadian Meat Council said Tuesday it’s “confident that this deal has the potential to increase beef and pork sales by at least $500 million, creating the potential to support an additional 5,800 jobs here in Canada.”

TPP countries already take about 20 per cent of Canada’s wheat exports, according to Cereals Canada, which said Tuesday it expects “additional growth in existing markets like Japan as well as development in emerging customers” in Asia such as Vietnam.

“The elimination of all import tariffs on soy products as well as the comprehensive framework of rights and obligations applicable to the use of technical measures will provide invaluable support to Soy Canada’s target of a doubling of production to 13 million tonnes by 2027,” Soy Canada chair Mark Huston said in a separate release.

Dairy Farmers of Canada, however, on Tuesday cited reports that the new CPTPP deal will include the market access concessions originally agreed to in October 2015.

“Although the loss of the U.S. represents a loss of approximately 60 per cent of the original TPP market (gross domestic product), the original concessions to our domestic dairy market remain,” DFC said in a release. “How is this in the best interests of Canadians?”

‘Collective commitment’

Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said the new CPTPP, or TPP-11, would be an “engine to overcome protectionism” emerging in parts of the world.

He added Japan would explain the importance of the deal to Washington in hopes of persuading it to join.

Ministers from the 11 countries, including Japan, Australia and Canada, agreed in November on core elements to move ahead without the U.S., but demands by countries including Canada for measures to ensure the deal protects jobs blocked a final agreement.

“This outcome reaffirms the CPTPP countries’ collective commitment towards greater trade liberalization and regional integration,” Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said in a statement.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said last week the new agreement would leave a door open for eventual U.S. participation.

Canada, which wanted protection of its cultural industries, and Vietnam, which has worried about labour protection rules, will exchange separate side letters with other members on those topics at the time of the signing, Motegi said.

The timing of the deal is significant for Canada, which is trying to diversify its exports. Talks with Mexico and the U.S. on modernizing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have run into trouble and may fail.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kaori Kaneko and Takashi Umekawa in Tokyo; additional reporting by Jack Kim in Singapore and David Ljunggren in Montreal; writing by Linda Sieg. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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