Canada makes dairy proposal, but US producers reject it

Global Affairs Canada this week made a proposal to comply with a decision that its dairy tariff rate quota system violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement on trade, but the U.S. dairy industry rejected it.

“Enough is enough. U.S. dairy producers are sick and tired of Canada’s game playing on dairy market access,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation.

“From their irrelevant celebration that the panel upheld Canada’s right to retain a supply management system, a fact that no one has challenged and was not at issue in the USMCA case, to the continual efforts to undermine established trade commitments in order to favor Canadian dairy farmers, this pattern of behavior has gone on too long,” Mulhern said.

“All that American dairy farmers want is fair and good-faith implementation of USMCA’s dairy provisions. That doesn’t seem like a high bar, yet it appears to be insurmountable for Canada based on yesterday’s proposed dairy TRQ scheme changes,” Mulhern said.

“We urge the administration to demand that Canada go back to the drawing board until it can genuinely deliver on providing the U.S. dairy industry the full benefit of USMCA.”

“U.S. dairy farmers and manufacturers have only limited access to the Canadian market under USMCA,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

“That makes it essential that Canada abide by its original commitments under that agreement,” Harden said.

“Canada’s recent dairy TRQ proposal will not lead to that result. While it’s not surprising that Canada is trying to see just how little will be demanded of them, it’s essential that the U.S. government insist on real reforms.”

–The Hagstrom Report