Washington (CNN) American farmers are still feeling the pinch from President Donald Trump's multifront trade war, but they finally got some good news this week when the President announced he struck an "agreement in principle" on trade with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But while American pork producers say they're happy about the deal, which is still being finalized, it only gives them the same level of access to the Japanese market as they would have gotten if Trump had never pulled out of the Obama-era Trans-Pacific Partnership in the first place.

"We're getting what we had under the TPP and we're not going to lag behind," said Nick Giordano, vice president and counsel of global government affairs at the National Pork Producers Council.

Trump pulled out of the TPP as one of his first acts as President, saying he wanted to negotiate bilateral deals instead, but 11 other countries went ahead with putting it in place this past January . That left American pork producers facing higher tariffs than those in participating countries like Australia, Canada, Mexico and Chile. Meanwhile, the European Union also inked a trade deal with Japan, which lowered trade barriers for their pork exports.

American pork producers have relied on Japan as their biggest market by value. They had already seen exports slip this year, but the new deal should put them on equal footing again.

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