otecting American agriculture is the 
oasic charge of the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant 
Health Inspection Service (APHIS). 
APHIS has employees stationed across 
the country and around the world to 
accomplish this mission. 
APHIS works to safeguard American agricul- 
ture by keeping destructive foreign pests and 
diseases out of the United States. Should an 
exotic disease threaten U.S. borders, it’s 
APHIS’ role to combat the threat and pre- 
vent an outbreak. By ensuring the health and 
well-being of animals and plants nationwide, 
APHIS helps improve agricultural productiv- 
ity and competitiveness and contributes to 
the national economy and the public health. 
APHIS’ dedicated workforce strives to meet 
the needs of an ever-expanding customer 
base. We use state-of-the-art technology to 
keep up with trends in agriculture and inter- 
national trade as well as other pertinent 
issues. All of our work enhances the United 
States’ ability to buy and sell agricultural 
products in the international marketplace, 
fortifies our abundant, safe, and diverse food 
supply, and contributes to the health of U.S. 
public and private lands. 
2 APHIS in the Global Trade Arena 
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Global Trade Agreements 
Several global trade agreements help 
APHIS to carry out its mission, the most 
important of which are the North American 
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 
World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary 
and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement, the suc- 
cessor to the General Agreement on Tariffs 
and Trade (GATT). Both have helped the 
United States become more competitive in 
the international trade arena, especially in 
the area of agriculture. 
This growing interest in agricultural trade 
has created a more visible role for APHIS and 
expanded our mission to ensure that new 
trade opportunities benefit the United States 
without creating new threats from harmful 
exotic pests and diseases. APHIS is delegated 
as the primary negotiator for SPS-related 
trade issues. In that role, APHIS has the 
responsibility for regulating the importation 
of food and agricultural commodities into 
the United States as well as establishing SPS 
requirements that set the boundaries for safe 
international agricultural trade. The need for 
such SPS requirements is fully recognized by 
NAFTA and the WTO. 
NAFTA, a trilateral trade pact between the 
United States, Canada, and Mexico, went into 
effect in January 1994. The GATT was estab- 
lished in the wake of World War II, and its 
successor organization, the WTO, was cre- 
ated in 1995 after a series of trade negotia- 
tions known as the Uruguay Round. 
Collectively, the WTO’s more than 140 mem- 
ber countries account for more than 90 per- 
cent of world trade. Decisions are made 
based on the consensus of the entire WTO 
membership. 
During NAFTA and WTO negotiations, coun- 
tries embarked on a historic effort to reform 
agricultural trade. Under both agreements, 
countries are required to base their SPS 
measures on scientific evidence. In short, 
countries are now required to scientifically 
justify their reasons for impeding the free 
