First hurdle towards ratification acheived with 385-41 vote!

Washington, DC - Soy growers, other agriculture and business groups have rallied collectively for months to ensure the House of Representatives would pass the “new NAFTA” before the fade of 2019. Today, that critical step has happened. The American Soybean Association (ASA) expresses its strong appreciation to Speaker Pelosi and the House for passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“This is a win for soybean farmers and a win for the Administration and Congress. Their efforts to pass a free trade deal that can restore certainty and stability to an important export market for our farmers demonstrates that they can accomplish great things working in unison,” said Bill Gordon, soy grower from Worthington, Minn., and ASA president. “We express our thanks to the House of Representatives for this momentous act. We now look to the Senate to take up and pass USMCA in early 2020.”

Mexico is the #2 market for whole beans, meal and oil, and Canada is the #4 buyer of meal and #7 buyer of oil for U.S. soybean farmers, making the trade agreement essential to sustaining the growth realized in those two countries under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under NAFTA, U.S. soybean sales to Mexico quadrupled and to Canada doubled.