The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) sent a strong message to the administration that the United States should insist that Japan eliminate its so-called Gate Price on U.S. pork as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, the NPPC wrote that the Gate Price has associated with it a long history of fraud and criminal activity, and it discriminates against Japanese consumers by putting upward pressure on food prices.

It has also led to Japanese meat processing companies to move their plants to other countries. The NPPC said, “While Japan’s current TPP offer on pork, if implemented might allow a modest increase in U.S. pork exports to that country, it would rob the U.S. pork industry of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual pork exports to Japan and would stymie the creation of thousands of U.S. jobs that the industry would realize if the Gate Price and tariffs on pork were eliminated. Japan is the top export market for U.S. pork and imported nearly $2 billion of products in 2013.”