US-Japan Trade Deal - a Boon for the Potato Industry

A trade deal between the United States and Japan, a long-time steady customer of U.S. agriculture products, has been recently announced. Over the last 20 years, agricultural exports to Japan averaged USD10.7bn, dropped only once below USD8bn (USD7.9bn in 2005), and reached USD12.9bn in 2018.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, Japan is already fourth-largest buyer in the U.S. farm and ranch goods – sometimes ranking even higher – despite the average 17% tariff on U.S. agricultural products, the result of the two countries not having a free trade agreement.

In the wake of the announcement, the National Potato Council issued a press release in which it applauds the signing of an agreement between the U.S. and Japan.

“The agreement puts the U.S. potato industry back on a level playing field with foreign competitors in accessing our largest export market in terms of tariffs. Now we must turn to gaining Japanese market access approval for products such as fresh (table stock) potatoes and year-round access to chipping potatoes,” said Kim Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council.

Even if the NPC and members of Congress urged the U.S. Trade Representatives and the Trump administration to push fresh potatoes in the agreement, but that did not come to pass.

Japan is the U.S. potato industry’s largest export market with exports totaling over USD350m in the past year. Given a competitive tariff regime and reasonable market access agreements, it is believed that this market can grow by another USD150m annually (42%) in the very near future.

According to the National Potato Council, the value of the U.S. potato production is over USD3.7bn annually and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs both directly and indirectly.