Farm Journal’s Pork | 23 May 2022

Honduran President wants review of trade agreement with US

By Jennifer Shike

Honduran President Xiomara Castro wants to review her country’s 2004 trade agreement with the United States, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) reports in Capital Update.

Honduras is part of the multilateral deal known as the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), which also includes Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

During a speech taking stock of her first 100 days in office, Castro said the agreement “seriously limits our freedom to reach sovereignty” in the agriculture sector. She added that under the trade deal, Honduras is restricted from taxing “subsidized” U.S. agricultural products coming into its market.

NPPC pointed out that the U.S. government does provide farm loan guarantees, some financial support for risk management programs — crop insurance and margin coverage — and disaster assistance.

The organization was a strong proponent of the trade pact, which eliminated tariffs on U.S. pork exports to the DR-CAFTA countries.

ForeignPolicy.com reports in its Latin America Brief that CAFTA-DR "reduced Honduras’ authority to tax subsidized agriculture products from the U.S., when then flooded the Honduran market and made it more difficult for local agriculture to compete."

Last year, the U.S. pork industry shipped nearly $115 million of pork to Honduras.