Trade Matters Ag markets are on pins and needles as they wait to see if a trade deal can be salvaged from the U.S.-China negotiations now taking place in Washington, DC. In the livestock and poultry sector, that anxiety extends to the fate of the USMCA in Congress and the negotiations with Japan over a new free trade deal (or at least the ag components). Four of the top five markets for U.S. red meat and poultry are represented in those uncertain processes cited above.

The fifth market is Korea, the hero of the beef (and thus cattle, corn and DDGS) market over the past year. It accounted for half of the $1 billion increase in global beef exports in 2018. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) was implemented in 2012, a time when th...