Day 7, January 12, Atlanta, Georgia

It was a travel day, so we didn’t have any meetings. The big event for today was a hockey game at the Philips Arena between Atlanta Thrashers and Pittsburgh Penguins. The game had it all — except a fight. I hadn’t been to an NHL hockey game since the Jets left Winnipeg, which was in 1996. Philips Arena is an elegant facility with soft lighting and a great sound system, but the Quebecers in our group said Bell Centre in Montreal is better. Sidney Crosby scored both Pittsburgh goals and could have had a couple more. Atlanta also scored twice, so the game went to four-on-four overtime and then to a shootout. The old man Mark Recchi won it for the home side. It was my first time seeing four-on-four overtime and seeing a shootout. They are way, way more entertaining than a tie.

I got a news release yesterday from the offices of the U.S. Trade Representative and the USDA. These offices had sent a delegation to Mexico City to discuss NAFTA with Mexican officials. NAFTA was fully implemented on January 1 with removal of final duties on a handful of agricultural commodities. These include U.S. exports to Mexico of corn, dry edible beans, and nonfat dry milk; Mexican exports to the United States of certain horticultural products; and two-way sweetener trade.

Here is the lead quote from the release: “NAFTA has been a positive force for our respective agricultural sectors, creating not only dramatic growth in two-way agricultural trade, but providing our farmers, ranchers and processors with the potential to take advantage of new export opportunities, while providing a clear and certain path to enhanced trade,” said Mark E. Keenum, USDA under secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services. This comment backs what I said a couple of days ago about there being strong support for trade in these departments. But their actions have to respect the wishes of Homeland Security, and the voices of the many farm lobby groups who don’t always seem to realize the value of trade.

The release also noted that Canada and Mexico are the No. 1 and No. 2 export markets for U.S. agriculture, respectively.  In fiscal year 2007, two-way agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico was valued at a record $22.2 billion, a nearly fourfold increase over fiscal 1993 — the year preceding the implementation of NAFTA — when two-way trade was valued at $6.4 billion. In fiscal 2008, USDA predicts two-way trade at $24 billion.

According to Ag Canada data, two-way agricultural trade between Canada and the U.S. was $25 billion in 2005.