Secretary Tom Vilsack will travel to Japan and China this week to meet with agricultural counterparts.
The United States recently concluded negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Japan and 10 other nations. Countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership currently account for up to 42 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports, totaling $63 billion. The administration continues to work with Congress to secure the passage of the agreement into law so that American agriculture can take full advantage of unprecedented new market access in some of the fastest-growing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The past seven years have represented the strongest period for American agricultural exports in the history of our country, with U.S. agricultural product exports totaling $911.3 billion between Fiscal Years 2009 and 2015. In fiscal year 2015, American farmers and ranchers exported $139.7 billion of food and agricultural goods to consumers worldwide. Not only that, U.S. agricultural exports supported more than 1 million American jobs both on and off the farm, a substantial part of the estimated 11.7 million jobs supported by exports all across our country.