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Corn Growers React to End of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

John Pemble, Iowa Public Radio

President Trump is following through on a campaign promise by halting negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The executive action may lead farm groups to take a different approach to trade.

The 12-nation trade deal has never been ratified by Congress On the campaign trail, Trump called it a “horrible deal.” Groups in Iowa such as the Corn Promotion Board supported the TPP. Louisa County farmer Wayne Humphries is chair of exports and grain trade for the group. He says the U.S. withdrawing from the multi-lateral TPP may result in bilateral agreements, which are easier to negotiate.

“There are cultural nuances in all of these countries," he says. "There is a vast difference in the gross domestic product, the size of the economies of those countries that were involved in TPP.”

Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Canada are among the nation's involved in the Partnership.

“I think they all want to do business with the U.S., and we, for the most part, want to do business with all of those countries,” Humphries says.

In a release, Republican U.S. Senator Joni Ernst says she is “disappointed” by the move to withdraw from TPP. She says “access to new markets is critical” to Iowa’s economy.