A dairy state lawmaker is praising this week’s ruling on the first dispute under the USMCA trade deal. The panel ruled in favor of U.S. dairy farmers claiming that Canada has been restricting access to its markets.
Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin says that it is possible Canada will appeal, especially if it has information it did not present to the panel for consideration, but he says that he doubts that is the case and the merits in favor of U.S. producers ares strong.
He says that the decision is not a cure-all for the dairy industry, but it is an important one under the new trade deal.
“Because Canada and Mexico are our two biggest export markets, they’re our two border neighbors. We have to find a rules-based trading system with them because a lot of goods and products are going to be crossing these borders and that was the exact purpose behind modernizing NAFTA and creating the new USMCA trade agreement, making sure that that trade continues, which is mutually beneficial to all the countries, but is done based on the rules that was agreed to at the time, and that’s where we are today,” according to Kind.
He says that the U.S. is sensitive to Canada’s dairy management, but it needs to live up to the terms of the agreement and stop excluding products, especially class 7 ultra-filtered milk.
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Vilsack and dairy industry celebrates first trade dispute ruling under USMCA