News

USTR announces new actions seeking Canadian dairy market access

The U.S. is again trying to make Canada live up to the dairy guidelines in the USMCA trade agreement.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced Tuesday that a second dispute panel has been established regarding Canada’s dairy tariff-rate quota (TRQ) allocation measures.

The U.S. already won the first dispute panel action filed in 2021, but Tai and the U.S. dairy industry claim Canada’s revised dairy TRQ allocation measures effectively prohibit retailers, food service operators, and other types of importers from utilizing TRQ allocations, undermining the market access it agreed to provide in the USMCA.

Tai issued a statement saying, “With this panel request, we are utilizing our available tools to enforce our trade agreements and ensure that U.S. workers, farmers, processors, and exporters receive the full benefits of the USMCA.  Canada made commitments to the United States in the USMCA, and the Biden-Harris Administration is ensuring that they honor those commitments.”  

The move by the USTR is being praised by American agriculture groups including American Farm Bureau Federation, Edge Dairy Farmers Cooperative, the National Milk Producers Federation, and the U.S. Dairy Export Council.