More reaction on this week’s United States, Mexico, Canada agreement this time from south of the border.

Andy Schmitz owns land at Moose Jaw but is also a Professor of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Florida, a Research Professor with the University of California Berkeley and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

He says what dominates the discussion around Agriculture with the USMCA there is Trumps dislike for the Canadian Dairy Industry.

“The Dairy Farmers have made that comment now that it was a bad deal and they certainly got hurt by it. In addition, the numbers are fairly big because the value of the dairy industry in a year is say $16 billion and with the US gaining access of 3.6% you’re looking at roughly $600 million a year loss to the industry in Canada.”

He says Trump supporters and non-supporters are very supportive of the agreement in terms of trying to expand trade and remove tariff and non-tariff barriers.

However, he says it’s not a sure bet that this trade agreement is ever going to get through Congress:

“It’s a wild card out there whether this thing will ever see the light of day in my opinion. The way the politics is working and the split between the Democrats and the Republicans. I think if more of the Democrats win on the mid-term election they wouldn’t have the votes to push it through. It seems like every issue now that comes up in Congress you’ve got all the Democrats for it, Republicans against it and vice versa.”

Schmitz says overall it’s going to be interesting to do an analysis of who the gainers and losers were in the agreement; noting it covers a lot of ground from the dairy sector to the automobile pact and the security tariffs.