APHIS plays a vital role in ensuring the free flow of agricultural trade by keeping U.S. agricultural industries free from pests and diseases and certifying that the millions of U.S. agricultural and food products shipped to markets abroad meet the importing countries' entry requirements. APHIS makes sure that all imported agricultural products shipped to the United States from abroad meet the Agency's entry requirements to exclude pests and diseases of agriculture.
APHIS also keeps export markets open for American agricultural products by working to eliminate unjustified sanitary or phytosanitary (SPS) barriers - that is, concerns involving plant and animal health - raised by U.S. trading partners. APHIS' team of technical experts, based in the United States and abroad, includes scientists, veterinarians, pathologists, and entomologists that advocate on behalf of U.S. agriculture. They build relationships with their agricultural health and regulatory counterparts in other countries and use scientific principles to make the case for American agricultural exports, explaining to foreign officials why U.S. commodities are safe to import. APHIS played a direct role in opening new markets and retaining and expanding existing market access for U.S. agricultural products worth billions of dollars annually.