Periodically, NPPC scores members of Congress on their votes on issues and legislation that are of paramount importance to the livelihoods of America’s pork producers.

The scores then are made public so voters have the information when determining the candidate of their choice in the next election.

TPA defines US negotiating objectives and priorities for trade agreements and establishes consultation and notification requirements for the president to follow throughout the negotiation process.

Once trade negotiators finalise a deal, Congress gets to review it and vote yes or no – without amendments – on it. Congress has granted TPA to every president since 1974, with the most recent law being approved in August 2002 and expiring June 30, 2007.

The key reason TPA is needed, said pork council President Ron Prestage, is for concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations among the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries.

According to Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes, the TPP deal would be the most significant commercial opportunity ever for US pork producers, generating more than 10,000 pork industry jobs.

“US trade negotiators will have the final leverage they need to close the TPP negotiations when Congress passes TPA,” said Prestage. “It will allow nations to cut to their bottom line negotiating position in TPP.”

Since 1989 – the year the United States began using bilateral and regional trade agreements to open foreign markets – pork exports have increased 1,550 percent in value and 1,268 per cent in volume.

The United States shipped more than $6.6 billion of pork to international destinations in 2014. The US pork industry exports more pork to the 20 countries with which the United States has free trade agreements than to the rest of the nations combined.

Prestage said: “Each and every one of the free trade agreements that got us that tremendous growth in exports were made possible by the enactment of Trade Promotion Authority bills. That is why NPPC and virtually every other agricultural organisation in the United States are in favor of Congress expeditiously moving TPA legislation.”

Failure to pass TPA, noted Prestage, would send a signal to the world that the United States is turning its back on the Asia-Pacific region – the fastest growing area in the world – and allowing other countries to write the rules for international trade.

“The US pork industry, US agriculture, indeed the entire US economy needs TPA, and we need it soon,” said Prestage. “And if House lawmakers vote against TPA, we’ll hold them accountable.”