I was discussing basically two issues. One is what your position is if you're inside a preferential trade agreement, as we are with the Americans. We're in the inside of the tent looking out with them; we're partners and we have duty-free access. That works. We did one of those with Colombia; we got there before the Americans, and we gained considerably.
However, with Korea, where an agreement sat on hold for years because we were concerned about automotive trade, many agricultural exporters found themselves in a very difficult position. For example, the pork tariff on stuff that we are good at selling will go down by 9% for the Americans on March 15. In an industry where your margins are generally 5% or lower, that means that if you want to keep shipping, you lose on every pound you ship, so if we're not in there first, not only do we not gain from duty-free trade, but what we've built up is at a disadvantage.
Mr. MacAulay is gone, but there were some problems with french fries going into the Caribbean for the same reason. That's what happens.
If we don't get into the trans-Pacific partnership at the table in the first round and have to buy our way in later, while the Japanese do sit at the table, all the trade we've built up in the Japanese market is going to be at a disadvantage, because instead of having a level playing field in terms of tariffs with the United States, we'll be at a disadvantage.
I was very happy to see Mr. Manley's group and their counterparts in Japan come out with a press release, yesterday or this morning, that encouraged a Canada-Japan free trade agreement in parallel with the TPP.
Being there last is really a serious problem.