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Dairy group sees potential gains from new Canada trade deal

The President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation says a potential trade agreement with Canda could improve market access for the industry.  

Gregg Doud says the Trump administration intended to impose a 50 percent levy. “That was the purpose of the threat of tariffs is to bring to this thing to a close. It sounds like it worked. We’ll have to see. By all indications, it sounds like we have a deal, but I don’t know what the details are.”

On Thursday, President Trump announced a three-day pause on the tariffs on  alcohol, dairy and motor vehicles.

He tells Brownfield he’d like to see a new deal include a resolution to Canada’s tariff rate quota. The country allows a certain number of dairy products to enter at a low or zero tariff. “We needed them to fix that. They have been pretty fussy about that. If that has been fixed, then that’s a big step forward.”

And, he says, there are concerns that Canada has been selling dairy protein byproducts below market value. “We called them out on that. We got some things adjusted in USMCA to kind of put a lid on that, but you can’t think of all the alternatives of where you can tuck that stuff. They’re tucking stuff in different places. That’s an issue we wanted addressed.”

Doud says it’s unclear when any details will become public.