Agriculture in the NAFTA Renegotiation

Despite agriculture’s modest contribution to GDP in all three partner countries, agricultural issues will be a thorny aspect of the NAFTA renegotiation—just as they are in other trade agreement negotiations. US and Canadian agricultural producers like NAFTA and will fight hard to preserve it. Aside from some wrangling over market access issues for dairy, poultry, and eggs and recent spats over Canadian soft lumber, farm organizations in both countries view NAFTA positively. Public opinion in Mexico is more ambivalent, but NAFTA has created strong export-oriented agricultural interests in the country’s north that balance more protectionist interests in the south. NAFTA has created complex cross-border agricultural supply chains that create value added for the US economy, particularly in GOP-leaning states. Disrupting NAFTA could create big problems for Trump-voting states and states with GOP and split Senate delegations, especially those that rely heavily on agricultural exports and intra-NAFTA trade.