Republicans and Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee -- including the chairman -- asked Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for reassurance that the administration will preserve trade agreements that are crucial to farm sales, during a Feb. 6 hearing on the rural economy. Perdue said he expects Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to reach an agreement on a modernized NAFTA by the end of the year, though not until after Mexico's presidential election. "I’m more hopeful than I have been," he told Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., who had noted Mexico buys 30 percent of his state's milk. Perdue said NAFTA has been positive for agriculture generally; all trade-related questions from the committee during the hearing were pro-free trade.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.