The Affects of the Trans-pacific Parternership on Tobacco

Source from:  SFNToday.com 10/20/2015

As is the case with a lot of trade agreements, there are plenty of proponents and opponents alike and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is no exception. On the east coast in the tobacco growing states, the so-called tobacco carve out as been contentious. NC State Extension Economist Blake Brown outlines his understanding of the carve out:

"The tobacco carve out, as it's called, basically means that US tobacco product manufacturers would not have a legal recourse, should one of the country's in the agreement put forward some policy that's viewed as discriminatory in terms of trade against a US manufactured product."

So, Brown explains what that means for tobacco producers:

"They would not have the same protection, as my understanding, as say, other companies, say a pork company or a pharmaceutical company who felt like a country was putting forth a discriminatory policy that really wasn't fair under the trade rules. So, that seems to be the difference in the tobacco carve out. That rule doesn't seem to apply to unmanufactured exports or leaf exports."

Without the written agreement available for review, Brown says there's some speculation to be made here, but it appears that unmanufactured leaf is unaffected:

"The agreement does have the potential to increase exports of US leaf tobacco. It's very unclear how much though, because we don't know exactly how much tobacco has been going in through countries outside of this agreement that we just don't have a record of. We don't export a lot of tobacco to the countries in the TPP right now."

We'll hear more from NC State Extension Economist Dr. Blake Brown on the potential impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for agriculture. Enditem