US keen to include agriculture in EU trade talks: Perdue

The US government is keen to include agriculture in the trade talks with the EU, according to the US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.

The Trump administration believes agriculture must be part of any trade deal with Europe, Perdue said Wednesday during his ongoing EU tour. "If we (the US) are going to have any kind of trade deal with the EU, then agriculture needs to be a part of it."

Europe is an important agricultural market for the US agro products, including soybeans.

In 2018-19 marketing year (July-June), the EU -- world's second largest soybean importer – purchased 15 million mt of beans, according to the European Commission report released Monday.

The EU and Trump administration first agreed on a partial trade deal in July 2018, with Europeans agreeing to buy more US-origin soybeans. As a result, the US soy comprised over 65% of total EU soybean purchases in 2018-19, a rise of over 35 percentage points year on year.

For President Donald Trump, soybean farmers are an important support group, and so the US could push for more exports to the EU, sources said. If the US-EU trade talk does include agriculture, then the American soybean farmers may ship more beans across the Atlantic.

EU-US trade talks might hit some roadblocks on key agricultural issues, including chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef imports, trade sources said.

The Europeans had banned import of poultry products treated with chlorine dioxide on food safety issues since 1997, while hormone-treated beef imports have been barred in the EU since 1989 over health concerns.