Farmers in EU raise alarm over Mercosur, Ukraine trade deals
By Sybille de La Hamaide and Inti Landauro
PARIS/MADRID (Reuters) -French and Spanish farmers warned on Wednesday that a flood of imports under planned European Union trade agreements with South American bloc Mercosur and Ukraine risked severely undermining European agriculture.
The concerns come ahead of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's official visit to France and the expiry on Thursday of a free trade deal with Ukraine, which is expected to shift to import quotas this summer.
Lula said on Tuesday he would discuss the EU-Mercosur deal with President Emmanuel Macron, a strong critic of the agreement in its current form, which was finalised in December but still needs approval from member states.
In a meeting with members of parliament, French farmers' groups urged Macron to rally enough partners to form a blocking minority against the Mercosur deal, which they say would be devastating for the beef, poultry and sugar industries and compromise the EU's ambitions in terms of food sovereignty.
"It would be a real tragedy for our industry," Alain Carre, head of French sugar industry group AIBS said. "We're sounding the alarm."
French farmers held nationwide protests last year over low incomes, rising costs, and competition from cheap imports, particularly from Ukraine and Mercosur countries, demanding fairer trade terms and lighter regulation.
"Our demands (for an EU-Mercosur agreement) are simple: reciprocity of rules, traceability abroad and much clearer labelling," Jean-Michel Schaeffer, head of French poultry industry group Anvol, said.
Meanwhile, a few hundred farmers protested in Madrid against cheap grain imports from Ukraine and other countries, saying prices have fallen below production costs.
Spanish farmers are likely to lose 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) this year, said Javier Fatas, a leader of farmers union COAG from the Aragon region in northeastern Spain.
"This happens because of trade deals signed by Spain and the EU as part of geopolitics, bringing us prices too low to sustain our farms," Fatas said.
He warned that genetically modified grains from Mercosur also created unfair competition, echoing French farmers' concerns.
Wednesday's protest was peaceful, but only the beginning, he added. "Bad times are coming."
Here are the main EU import quotas for Mercosur products in the agreement:
Product Quota Volume Tariff / Note
Beef 99,000 t 7.5% tariff
Poultry 180,000 t 0%, phased in over 5 years
Pork 25,000 t 83 euros/tonne
Sugar 190,000 t 0%
Corn (Maize) 1,000,000 t 0%, phased in
Industrial 450,000 t 0%
Ethanol
Fuel Ethanol 200,000 t One-third of MFN tariff
Rice 60,000 t 0%
Honey 45,000 t 0%
($1 = 0.8770 euros)
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Is this now a moot point heading into the summit and is the US the lone holdout? Max Boot: It is a moot point. NATO is certainly not going to extend an invitation to Ukraine at this summit or any summit anytime soon. On this issue the US is not the lone holdout. Germany among others has also been very reluctant. And this is not just the Trump administration, this is in fairness also the Biden administration was also not here to extend NATO membership to Ukraine. That's not a crazy position because obviously if NATO were to extend an invitation to Ukraine right now, there's a real concern that NATO would become embroiled into war against Russia. But there's a lot that the European countries and the United States can still do to help Ukraine without the NATO membership, including helping Ukraine to become a member of the European Union, and also ensuring that the pipeline of weaponry from the United States to the Ukraine continues, that pipeline is almost dry right now. 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Dana Taylor: Leading up to the NATO summit were peace talks that took place in Turkey on June 2nd. As of this recording, Russia is still refusing to back down on its demands that Ukraine give up large swaths of territory and agree to limit the size of its army. This is according to a memo reported by Russian media. What might move the needle in this negotiation? Max Boot: That's a great question because clearly at this point, Putin has no interest in negotiating. President Zelensky and Ukraine have agreed to a thirty-day unconditional ceasefire as demanded by President Trump. Putin has consistently rejected that demand and made clear that his war of aggression will continue until Russia achieves its war aims, which include annexing a large chunk of Ukrainian territory, changing regimes in Kiev, putting limits on the Ukrainian armed forces, and basically turning Ukraine into a quasi-colony of the Kremlin. And those are all conditions that Ukraine will fight to the death in order not to agree to. So clearly, as long as Putin sticks to those hardline demands, negotiations over a peace settlement are not going to go anywhere. And so far they haven't gone anywhere. In terms of your question, which is I think the right one to ask, what could possibly move the needle? I think it's sending clear signals that Putin will not be able to defeat Ukraine, that he will not win this war because right now he thinks he can still advance. He thinks that Trump will cut off Ukraine. He thinks that the Russian armed forces can still make major gains. I think it's imperative to signal to Russia that there is no battlefield solution for Russia here, that there is no way they will achieve their battlefield objectives. And how do we do that? Well, there are several ways of doing it. One way at the moment, the European countries have about $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. They should turn those over to Ukraine immediately so Ukraine can use that money to finance its own arms industry and build the weapons it needs to defend itself indefinitely. The US should also give or sell weapons to Ukraine and crack down on sanctions on Russia as called for in a Senate bill. All of these things combined together would send a very clear message to Putin, you're not going to win this war. You have to compromise. You have to negotiate in earnest. But so far, that message has not gone out. President Trump has said several times over the last couple of months that he's unhappy about Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian civilians, but he is not backing up those words with actions. And unless we do something to increase the cost to Russia, its aggression, that aggression will continue. Dana Taylor: President Trump promised, of course, to end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office. After initially siding with Russia, Trump recently expressed his frustrations, as he said, saying Putin is gone, quote absolutely crazy unquote, with this massive ongoing military strikes against Ukraine. What's been the effect of Trump's mixed messages regarding Putin on a relationship with our NATO allies? Max Boot: I think this is very worrisome for our NATO allies because they want the US to take a tough line against Russian aggression as we were doing under President Biden. So they're very concerned about the mixed signals from Washington, and those mixed signals undercut any impetus for ending the war. I mean, if you want to talk about why Trump hasn't had any success in peacemaking, even though he promised that he would end the war in a day, a lot of the reason why he's not being more successful is he's not doing anything to put pressure on Russia. He's sending signals to the Kremlin that he is more interested in doing business with Russia than he is in forcing Russia to end its war of aggression. And so as long as that continues, it'll be very hard to bring this war to a close. But this is definitely a huge transatlantic divide because our European allies see this Russian invasion of Ukraine as an existential threat to themselves. They are very, very worried that if Russia prevails in Ukraine, Putin will continue moving further west, that the Baltic Republics or Poland, which are both NATO members, could be next, and an attack on those countries could trigger a massive global war. So the European countries want to hold the line against Russian aggression in Ukraine, and Trump seems to be at best ambivalent in terms of the war. And having the US and Europe at cross purposes, the only person that helps is Vladimir Putin. Dana Taylor: I want to turn now to the funding of NATO. President Trump has pushed for NATO members to pay their quote fair share, 2% of each nation's GDP on NATO defense. How have other nations responded so far? Max Boot: Well, actually, most NATO countries are now spending at least 2% of GDP on defense. But Trump is moving the goalposts. He's now demanding that NATO countries spend 5% of GDP on defense, which by the way is more than the US itself spends. We spend about 3.5% of GDP on defense. So I don't think this is a realistic demand, but I think the European countries are recognizing that even 2% is insufficient, and they're, I think, going to set 3% or 3.5% as a benchmark for their defense spending. And then they're going to do some creative accounting and claim that they're getting up to 5% by counting infrastructure investment as part of their quote unquote national defense budget. But I think clearly there is a recognition in Europe that they need to spend more on defense. They are spending more on defense. And the fact that we now have a government in Germany that is willing to do deficit spending, which is willing to take on debt in order to expand its defense budget, that's a big deal. That's a huge amount of money potentially that Germany's going to be able to pour into its defense budget. It's going to vastly enhance European defense capabilities. We see the UK just came out with a defense white paper that calls for an expansion of the British military and British defense spending. I think this is pretty universal across Europe. All these countries recognize that there is a threat, but it's going to take them a while to scale up spending. And I think the primary impetus is not so much President Trump's browbeating, it's the threat that they see from Putin, and they're concerned that they're going to be abandoned by the United States, so they're going to have to fend for themselves. Dana Taylor: In terms of the US remaining in NATO, some Americans may be joining Trump in asking, what's in it for us? So what's in it for us? Max Boot: Well, what's in it for us is a more prosperous, stable and mutually beneficial world order. I mean, Europe is one of our largest trade partners. It's a massive continent of 350 million people. We do a tremendous amount of business with them. We share common values with them. These are all liberal democracies. So it's imperative that we stand with our allies as we have done since 1945 to ensure peace and stability in Europe. The alternative is too horrific to contemplate. We're already getting a small taste of it in Ukraine with the most serious war of aggression that Europe has seen since 1945. We don't want to see the rest of the continent becoming embroiled in war. And the most effective way to avoid conflict is to deter aggressors. And nothing deters aggression more than NATO. We've seen that over more than 70 years. NATO has keep the peace, that's very much to America's benefit, as well as to Europe's benefit, and indeed, the entire world's benefit. Dana Taylor: And finally, Max, as I mentioned, this year's summit will be held in The Hague, the city synonymous with international justice. What's at stake with this year's talks? Max Boot: Well, I think there's a lot at stake we've talked about, the divisions between the US and Europe on how to deal with Ukraine. There also, although this is not a NATO issue per se, the fact that President Trump has declared trade wars on our allies is also something that strains ties and makes it harder for us to cooperate on defense and strategic matters when we're at war with each other on tariffs. And again, this is not going to be something that's going to be resolved at the NATO summit, but I think it is imperative for the Trump administration to back off its tariff threats and to reach accommodations with our European allies. I think there's a general sense of that what's at stake is the future of the Transatlantic alliance. Do we have enough in common anymore between the US and Europe to keep this alliance together? And I would emphatically argue yes, but nobody knows if Trump is convinced of that, because in the past and even now, he's been much more critical of US allies than he has been of US enemies. He continues to denounce the Europeans as freeloaders and people who are taking advantage of us. None of that is true, but it puts a massive strain on the alliance, and I think there'll be an opportunity to try to heal some of that strain at the NATO summit. Dana Taylor: Max, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt. Max Boot: Thanks for having me. Dana Taylor: Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@ Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
