Mulvaney sees approval of USMCA trade deal likely [Wall Street Journal]
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement has “a better than two-thirds chance” of passing through Congress this year, President Trump’s acting chief of staff said Tuesday, adding its approval depends on support among House Democrats. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal CFO Network meeting, Mick Mulvaney said the successor deal to the North American Free Trade Agreement has many supporters in the House, and a likely majority in the full chamber, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) is unlikely to bring it to the floor without a clear majority of Democrats….Mrs. Pelosi has signaled they won’t allow a vote on USMCA without certain changes, including easier enforcement of new rules designed to strengthen labor rights in Mexico.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Thompson urge Trump to drop tariffs on US wine [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, joined other lawmakers Tuesday urging the Trump administration to ensure that any new trade agreements with China or Japan remove tariffs on U.S. wine. The two sent letters to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer calling on the Trump administration to “do all it can to support the international competitiveness of U.S. agriculture” in talks with China and Japan. They were joined by 17 other federal lawmakers. They noted that tariffs on U.S. wine sold in China increased to 54% in June, up from 14% in March 2018 as Beijing retaliated in a trade war sparked by President Donald Trump.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/9691449-181/dianne-feinstein-mike-thompson-urge
Trump orders simpler path for genetically engineered food [Associated Press]
President Trump wants to make it easier for genetically engineered plants and animals to enter the food supply, and he signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to simplify the “regulatory maze” for producers….The order also noted the government’s policies should urge trading partners to adopt similar regulatory approaches….How genetically engineered plants and animals are currently regulated in the U.S. varies depending on the exact methods used to produce them, and federal agencies have already been working to clarify policies as new technologies have emerged.
https://www.apnews.com/2895e0f0ef344d16bfcf6f457ed2e759
Fresh Express announces contract renewal for Salinas employees [Salinas Californian]
Fresh Express has announced that it completed negotiations for its Salinas workers, a day after employees walked out on the job in protest. An agreement was reached with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 5 and renewal of its contract for the Salinas facility workforce, according to a Fresh Express statement issued early Wednesday….Around 2 p.m. Tuesday, hundreds of Fresh Express employees walked off the job in Salinas, saying they had been in negotiations for six months and not received a contract to their satisfaction.
Coachella Valley grape harvest starts late, leaving less time to get large crop to market [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
The Coachella Valley grape harvest is off to a late start, following the desert’s unseasonably cool spring. Growers are now feeling the squeeze to harvest the crop and get it to market before the massive Central Valley harvest begins in early July. Some workers, meanwhile, have picked up work in other crops, while they waited for the grape season to kick off….Desert growers now have a shorter period of time to get their fruit into produce sections at grocery stores. Blaine Carian, who started harvesting his 300 acres of table grapes more than two weeks later than normal, said that despite the delay, farms still need to complete the work by early July, before the Central Valley’s harvest ramps up.
Why food reformers have mixed feelings about eco-labels [NPR]
Take a walk through the grocery story; the packages are talking to you, proclaiming their moral virtue, appealing to your ideals: organic, cage-free, fair trade. When I dug into the world of eco-labels recently, I was surprised to find that some of the people who know these labels best are ambivalent about them….And then there’s “non-GMO.”…Non-GMO means, of course, that this food wasn’t made from genetically modified crops….But companies now are printing that non-GMO label on things like strawberries or mangoes, which are never genetically modified.
