KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Gopeng MP Tan Kar Hing has called for a special hearing by the agriculture parliamentary special select committee (PSSC) to scrutinise the Malaysia-United States Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART).
He warned that Malaysia’s current capacity on food safety, halal oversight, and animal-disease surveillance may not match the deal’s demands.
The 43-year-old lawmaker said he supports the pact’s market access goals and investment certainty, describing ART as “generally good” for exporters. But he flagged public confidence issues around halal and food safety, alongside readiness gaps at key regulators.
“ART is considered good, despite some potential threats or even concerning articles in the agreement,” Tan told CodeBlue in an interview at Parliament here last Thursday.
“As a whole, of course, the good is the certainty in the market and the access to the market. So to a certain extent, for local producers, ART is considered good news. But of course, it raises some concern, especially on food safety and agricultural products.
“It seems like we are giving leeway to the US, and also there is the issue of public confidence in halal credibility.”
The Malaysia-US ART – a bilateral trade pact signed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and US president Donald Trump during a meeting on the sidelines of the 47th Asean Summit on October 26 – requires Malaysia to recognise US food safety and inspection systems for meat, poultry, and dairy products as meeting Malaysian import standards.
The pact also streamlines halal certification for US exports and commits Malaysia to adopt regionalisation, or zone-based disease control, instead of blanket import bans during outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or African swine fever (ASF).
These agricultural provisions, detailed in Annex III of the agreement, effectively grant legal equivalence to US regulatory certifications and limit Malaysia from imposing additional inspection or registration requirements on approved American facilities.
Clause-By-Clause Scrutiny Before Deadlines Kick In
Tan has asked Rasah MP Cha Kee Chin, who chairs the Parliament Special Select Committee on Domestic Trade, Entrepreneurship, Cost of Living, and Agriculture – a committee of which Tan is also a member – to convene a special hearing on ART.
He said that while the committee has yet to finalise the schedule, the hearing will likely involve briefings from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS), the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim), and the Food Safety and Quality Division (FSQD), among others.
The special hearing is expected to take place before the implementation windows lapse. The agreement provides 180 days to implement zone-based controls for poultry imports, and 15 months for swine. This places Malaysia’s transition deadline for poultry by April 24, 2026, and for swine by January 26, 2027, since the deal was signed on October 26.
“We need to have an explanation from the authorities,” Tan said. “What is the definition of regionalisation when it talks about regionalisation to county level – what is the radius, the diameter, the range of it, how we define that particular sentence – that is much more important.”
The PKR MP said ART spans multiple ministries and requires coordinated oversight, including Parliament. “Right after the agreement was signed, I did make a few calls to the related agencies to get an explanation on it. It seems that we need to really sit down, go clause by clause over it, and see the definition of every single sentence in the agreement.”
Tan: Good Policy On Paper, But Who Will Carry It Out?
Under ART, Malaysia must move from blanket country bans to zone- or county-level restrictions for HPAI and ASF. While Tan supports the move in principle, he questioned whether Malaysia has the manpower to enforce it.
“All this while, our capacity is based on blanket country bans,” he said. “I see this new approach could be a pragmatic, progressive move, based on a scientific approach and all that, but the question is the same – whether we have the capacity, looking at the insufficiency of the manpower in the related departments.”
He suggested the same zoning approach should also be implemented domestically for ASF, instead of culling entire farms. “If we are going to apply the regionalisation approach overseas in the US, I think the same thing has to apply in Malaysia. Of course, to balance the food safety and the farmers’ welfare, we need to find a balance point.”
In Malaysia, ASF has already been declared endemic, with DVS reporting ongoing outbreaks across several pig-farming states. In Penang, ASF outbreaks led to the culling of 2,060 pigs across four farms as of August 1, including 351 that died from infection and 1,709 that were put down to contain its spread, according to Penang’s DVS.
While acknowledging that Malaysia has “a very stringent framework” and longstanding oversight systems, Tan questioned whether DVS and Jakim have enough capacity to enforce ART.
“The main question is how can we continue to oversee, and is there sufficient capacity for both these agencies to monitor and oversee the agricultural products that will be coming into Malaysia in the future,” he said.
“We still need to make sure that the oversight bodies, especially those recognised by Jakim – is it enough? I understand we have only about three to five certified oversight bodies in the US to oversee and make sure everything is compliant under Jakim,” Tan said.
He also raised concerns about border readiness. “When it comes to Malaysia, do we have enough capacity to do sampling and checking, in terms of disease control, and the risk of introducing a potential disease into Malaysia?”
Imports Won’t Surge Yet, But Implementation Clock Is Ticking
Tan said he does not expect US meat, poultry, or dairy to “flood” the Malaysian market immediately.
“Of course I don’t expect US products to flood in overnight because both countries are given time – 180 days and also 15 months – to agree on certain requirements,” he said. For now, imports from the US are mainly soybean, wheat, and other animal feed.
Veterinary policy expert Dr Saravanakumar S. Pillai previously told CodeBlue that the shift to animal disease zoning is “progressive but technically demanding”, requiring improvements in surveillance, data sharing, and border inspection systems.
Dr Saravanakumar said the DVS will need enhanced disease surveillance infrastructure, real-time data sharing with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and faster response protocols to update import eligibility as disease statuses change.
The former DVS deputy director added that while Malaysia already has a digital import permit system that reflects disease-free zones, further integration with US data, laboratory diagnostic capacity, and inter-agency coordination between DVS, FSQD, and Jakim will be necessary to maintain food safety and halal integrity.
Dr Saravanakumar stressed that trade facilitation under ART must not weaken Malaysia’s regulatory authority, noting that Malaysia should continue to carry out equivalence verification, documentation checks, and border inspections to safeguard animal health.
Tan said the priority now is ensuring Malaysia has the institutional and technical capacity to implement the agreement’s requirements. “The important thing is how we navigate along the way during this ample time to strengthen the capacity of Jakim and DVS,” he said.
