Governments in many countries have enacted policies aimed at mitigating climate change (heavy subsidies, carbon taxes, tough regulations), which are also affecting trade flows.
Billions of dollars in incentives in the US Inflation Control Act, the Canadian government’s carbon tax, and the EU’s biofuel feedstock requirements and carbon border adjustments are just a few examples of what these policies look like in practice. .
Most countries are going their own way, and politicians see an opportunity to protect domestic jobs with policies that favor domestic producers, creating a trade environment that is vulnerable to confusion and accusations of protectionism.
Canada and North America’s agricultural and food supply chains are highly dependent on trade, which could lead to green policy slipping into protectionist chaos and reducing trade efficiency from a global perspective, both economically and environmentally. What do we need to do to prevent it?
How should sustainability be measured and valued in trade? There are real concerns about losing export markets, but could a focus on carbon intensity or another sustainability metric give Canada an advantage in selling what it produces? How will the upcoming elections affect trade, especially as Canada, the United States and Mexico prepare to overhaul the North American Trade Agreement in two years’ time?
These are some of the key questions we explore with our expert panel on this trade-focused episode of the Ag Policy Connection podcast.
- Steve Verheul, president of GT and Company, and former chief trade negotiator for Canada and, prior to that, chief agricultural negotiator; and
- Tyler McCann is Managing Director of the Canadian Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy and a former policy advisor to Canada’s Minister of Agriculture during the Canada-EU and CPTPP trade agreement negotiations.
Check out the discussion below, or find the episode on your podcast app’s RealAgriculture feed.
Ag Policy Connection is brought to you by the Canadian Institute for Agriculture and Food Policy Research and RealAgriculture.
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