Lighthizer: Ag A Priority During Trade Talks

U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer said when talking about the American trade policy, agriculture has always been a focus.

"Agriculture has been a huge huge winner in the USMCA and in the China agreement where we've seen literally billions of new billions and billion of new sales. In Japan where we have, I know you are aware of this but we have, I think last year was one of our best years ever in beef and this year is like 25% above it."

Lighthizer made those comments during a recent House Ways and Means Committee.

"The U.K., we will have agricultural problems in that negotiation I can guarantee you. They will tend to be in the SPS area."

He added a second round of trade talks with Britain is wrapping up next week.

"My own hope is that we have at least a couple of chapters at that point that we've closed out," Lighthizer added. "We'll see if that happens since we don't have any at this point. But my hope would we have at least a couple of chapters closed out. But it's still a long way to go, and there are very very fundamental issues that we have to come to grips with."

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