The U.S. beef industry says if President Trump withdraws the US from the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, millions of dollars and thousands of jobs will be lost throughout the Midwest and other regions.
As the president tries to appeal to blue collar workers in the rust belt who voted for him, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association tells the White House, scuttling KORUS is also a ‘job killer’ in the heartland. NCBA’s trade adviser, Kent Bacus…
Bacus says NCBA’s told the president and his staff, it’s not just urban manufacturing that’s on the line with KORUS…
U.S. beef sales in number-two buyer Korea are up over 80-percent or to around one-billion dollars under KORUS, as tariffs move to zero over ten-years. But there’s more…
Walk away from KORUS and Bacus says the Koreans have no incentive to keep that, and could even raise the levy on U.S. beef, back to its pre-KORUS 40-percent. Bacus says his industry fears a NAFTA-style renegotiation of KORUS could result in gains for other sectors at the expense of farm trade.
