The United States urges Panama to use the TPC

Government of NOW this Wednesday he encouraged Panama to take advantage of the advantages it offers Trade Promotion Agreement (TPC) bilaterally, in light of the Central American country’s repeated request to revise the date for the reduction of tariffs on products such as beef and chicken, rice and some dairy products.

Undersecretary for Agriculture for Commerce and Foreign Agricultural Affairs of the United States., Alexis Taylorwho is in Panama on a mission to explore business opportunities in this country and Central America, addressed the issue this Wednesday and said that since he arrived in this capital a few days ago, he had been asked if this issue of the TPC magazine was “a lot of fighting” with his Panamanian colleague.

Taylor responded that he “knows very well” what is involved in negotiating a trade agreement that binds two countries, such as the TPC between NOW and Panamawhich implies, he argued, the “sacrifice” of both countries.

In this regard, he stated that he understood the “sensitivity of certain products from the Panamanian perspective”, but felt that “the beginning of recognizing these very specific issues could end up invalidating the entire economic foundation on which this agreement is based”.

“This agreement is much broader and includes much more than just agriculture, and has allowed the United States to be the largest foreign investor in Panama, with a total of 13,000 million dollars of US investment that have come into Panama since it was signed,” Taylor said.

The Under Secretary of Agriculture went further and said that attention must be paid to the opportunities that the TPC offers to Panamanian producers, for whom there is “additional space” to take advantage of agricultural exports to the US.

Currently, he added, out of a total of 110 tariff-free product lines, “Panama exports (to the United States) only 10 or less than 10 of those 110 tariff lines.”

In March 2022, the Government of Panama formally requested the United States to review the terms and conditions of the TPC tariff reduction schedule in order to “to protect the local production of rice, milk and its derivatives, and chicken and pork meat.”

The TPC was signed between Panama and the US in 2007 and entered into force in 2012, immediately eliminating tariffs on more than 87% of US industrial and consumer goods exports to Panama, while the remainder would be phased out over a decade, according to official information .

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Panama sent official notes addressed to Thomas VilsackUS Secretary of Agriculture, already Katherine Taitrade representative, expressing the intention of the Panamanian government “to invoke the adjustment mechanisms provided for in the Treaty, in relation to items of special social interest or sensitivity, such as rice, milk and its derivatives, and chicken meat and pork”.

But at the time the US Embassy’s chargé d’affaires in Panama, Stewart Tuttlehe assured in an interview with local media that the TPC was “ongoing” and that his government did not intend to renegotiate it.

This Tuesday, the Panamanian Minister for development of agriculture, Augusto Valderramahe clarified that Panama is not asking for “a renegotiation of the treaty” but “within the agreement” to seek safeguards, some quotas that can help, not to prevent trade from the US to Panama, but to regulate it so that our producers can coexist .

Valderrama highlighted pork and beef, some dairy products and rice “represent more than 52% of agricultural GDP”.