The National Chicken Council (NCC) favors the passage of legislation now pending before Congress to give the administration Trade Promotion Author- ity (TPA). TPA provides for an up or down vote in the House and Senate on trade deals without the opportunity to enact amendments or make changes in the agreements. The previous authority expired in 2007. “With 20 percent of our production being exported to more than 100 coun- tries,” said Mike Brown, the council’s president, “international customers are becoming more and more important. At one time, Russia and China were our two largest poultry export markets, but these have been severely disrupted. It is now more important than ever to expand poul- try sales to other world markets.” Congressional approval of TPA is necessary to ensure a successful out- come for the ongoing negotiations for the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Part- nership (T-TIP), according to Brown. “It is necessary to have TPA enacted because it will be essentially impossible to gain Congressional trade pact approval other- wise,” he said. In regards to TPP, Brown said the chicken industry hopes to see the long- protected Canadian market opened to trade. “The Canadian market should have been opened to free trade as a result of NAFTA,” he said. “If TPP is truly a free trade agreement, then there should be free trade in poultry between the United States and Canada, not just one-way market access for Canada.” Brown is less optimistic about the prospects for chicken under T-TIP. “The ban currently imposed by EU regulations on importation of our chicken is not based on sound science and is inconsistent with WTO rules,” he said. “T-TIP would be of use to our industry only if the negotia- tions resulted in the removal of barriers that Europe has had in place for 18 years.” The NCC is reserving judgment on both TPP and T-TIP until the government actually concludes deals. “Our support is limited to TPA at this point,” said Brown. TPP, if successfully concluded for U.S. poultry, will expand U.S. chicken exports by at least $500 million, accord- ing to Brown, if sanitary and veterinary issues, and other non-tariff trade barri- ers can be addressed. T-TIP could ben- efit U.S. poultry exports by more than $600 million annually “if the EU drops its unscientific trade barriers on our chicken,” Brown added. The NCC is also part of a coalition of U.S. food and agriculture associations and companies that seeks to end the U.S. embargo of Cuba. The purpose of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba (USACC) is to expand Cuba as a market for U.S. food and agriculture exports and address liberalizing trade between the United States and Cuba. Under current sanctions, U.S. food and agriculture companies can legally export to Cuba, but financing and trade restrictions limit the ability of the U.S. industry to competitively serve the market, allowing Canadian, Brazilian, and Argentinian providers to win market share at the expense of the U.S. industry. “If the updated policy has the effect of boosting Cuba’s private sector, and there- fore the wealth of its citizens, high qual- ity protein is usually the first to increase in demand,” said Brown. “Because of our proximity, we would welcome the oppor- tunity to provide more of our poultry to the Cuban people.”