Saskatchewan Pork Producers Encouraged to Connect with U.S. Customers and Suppliers to Discuss Tariffs

Saskatchewan's pork producers are encouraged to connect with their U.S. customers, partners and suppliers to draw attention to the economic damage that will result if the Trump administration moves forward with import tariffs. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is considering imposing across the board tariffs on products imported into the United States from both Canada and Mexico.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board General Manager Mark Ferguson says Sask Pork is working with the provincial and federal governments on the matter and encouraging producers to speak directly with their U.S. customers and input suppliers.

Quote-Mark Ferguson-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board:

Import tariffs, by nature and by design, make products more expensive in any country to uses them. This hurts the public in that country by making the goods and products more expensive in the importing countries so this will make anything that the tariffs apply to more expensive for U.S. consumers and that will increase inflation in the U.S.

As for the impact on producers, when importers have to face a potential 25 percent tax on things they import they might decide not to purchase the product.
They might decide to negotiate the price lower to make up for that tax bill so that type of negotiation would hurt our producers. That's the main impact on our producers, probably a lower price for the products they produce and potentially for our processors as well for the products they export.

Canada supplies about five million feeder pigs and over 1.5 million market animals to the U.S. annually so there's a lot of raw inputs going into the U.S. industry which provides jobs and economic activity in the United States and, if those inputs aren't there, that is going to have an impact on the U.S. economy and the amount of jobs in the pork sector.

Canada is also one of the largest markets for U.S. pork products and Canada and the U.S. have a great relationship for trading pork. We import a lot of processed pork; we export a lot of raw materials.That that benefits both our countries. In terms of U.S. producers, they've got a higher tax bill on stuff they may be importing. They may not be able to get that product anymore because Canada might send it to other countries.

Ferguson says pork producers would like to see the policy of tariffs eliminated, at least for agriculture if that can be carved out, because food security is important in North America.