Washington called on President Duterte to liberalize agricultural trade between the Philippines and the United States by reducing the barriers to imported farm products.

In the 2018 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers of the US Trade Representative (USTR), Washington pressed Manila to make the concessionary rates under Executive Order 23 permanent. The EO issued in May of last year extended for another three years the reduced rates on agricultural products as part of the Philippines’s tariff commitments to the World Trade Organization.

The country is implementing most-favored nation (MFN) rates of duty on certain farm products as concession to its special treatment on rice that expired July of last year. Legislators have yet to convert the lapsed quantitative restriction on rice into tariffs, reason the President had to extend the MFN rates of duty until June 30, 2020, or until such time the agricultural tarrification law is amended.

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