Terence P Stewart

I first met Terry Stewart when we were studying the opportunities for damaging trade practices. In his case we were looking at the possibility of filing trade cases against countries we believed were dumping and/or subsidizing live cattle imports into the United States. Mr Stewart met with myself an...d other leaders twice, outlining what he thought might be possible trade remedies. At both meetings he presented reviews on available public data, legal standards and requirements for various trade actions, challenges, costs, and possible outcomes. Mr. Stewart was not very optimistic about winning such cases; however, because of a need to elevate these issues as our industry was contracting, we decided to pursue both a countervailing case and an anti-dumping case. While we did not win the trade cases, we were able to develop several tools and many relationships that I believe turned out to be of greater benefit to our industry, than had we just won the cases and went home. I mention this because much of this evolved after the trade cases were finished and it was through Mr. Stewarts mentoring and understanding of our industry and his ability then to bridge our rural needs to what was available out of DC. Mr. Stewart and his firm set up many meetings with agencies such as USTR, DOC, USDA, Dept of Justice, ITC, etc., along with many meetings with our Senate and Congressional representatives back in DC. The purpose being to help those folks understand our problems and for us to understand what resolutions might be available to us. These meetings were done very professional and always with handouts, often prepared by Mr. Stewarts firm. Mr. Stewart was also very important in assisting and preparing many comment submissions requested by various agencies, and also was invaluable in assisting in preparing comments for various hearings we testified at. The relationships proved to be invaluable and we even ended up having some of these agency personal attending out cattle meetings and visiting our ranches and feedlots to better understand our challenges. Through this process we were able to develop new guidelines for trade agreements for perishable and cyclical products such as cattle and beef which can be found in the Trade Act of 2002, assist in developing beef safeguards in the Australia FTA, assist in passing legislation for Country of Origin Labeling for many agriculture products, including beef, and several other issues that have helped us be more competitive. Finally, the sincerity, integrity, foresightedness, and character of Terry Stewart is I believe unmatched.