U.S. and Japanese officials signed a new trade agreement in the White House Oct. 7, surrounded by American agriculture leaders.

The agreement, signed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Ambassador of Japan to the U.S. Shinsuke Sugiyama, lowers Japanese tariffs on many U.S. agricultural products.

“In the United States, these deals are a game changer for our farmers and our ranchers,” said President Donald Trump in his remarks before the signing ceremony. “We love our farmers and we love our ranchers; we’ve been working very hard on this — providing them with significantly enhanced access to a critical foreign market.”

“Under the terms of the agreement, today Japan has committed to dramatically increase market access to American food and agricultural exports,” Trump said later in his remarks. “It’s a very dramatic number. It’s one of the larger trade deals ever signed. As a result, 126 million Japanese consumers will have greater access to high-quality American almonds, blueberries, corn, wine, poultry, and egg products, beef, pork, wheat, and so much more.”

Lighthizer noted, “This is a very big trade deal.”

“This is about 55 billion dollars’ worth of trade. With this, we’ll have more than 95% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) that would have been in TPP. So it’s very important for farmers. It’s also important for digital trade.”

“Japan is the biggest market for United States in beef, pork, wheat. And it’s a substantial market in a variety of other things, including potatoes, which weren’t mentioned, and a lot of the nuts and other products. It also affects wine and the like. So we see — we think we’ll have substantial additional sales as a result of this.” ❖