Is Canada Living Up To USMCA? U.S. Dairy Says No

American dairy experts say Canada is already trying to limit American access to its dairy market under USMCA. While much of the U.S. Ag industry says USMCA is a ‘win’, Shawna Morris, trade chief for the National Milk Producers Federation, said much work remains in enforcing ‘wins’.

According to Morris Canada already is using tariff rate quotas to limit imports of U.S. dairy above certain volumes with prohibitive tariffs.

“Canada, last month, issued rules for how it will divvy out the right to use those tariff rate quotas to Canadian companies, granting the vast majority of them to other Canadian processors, that frankly, don't have a strong incentive to be importing from the U.S., and particularly, not higher-value products."

Morris added Canada committed under USMCA to dairy pricing reforms and more, not less, access for U.S. dairy.

“The fundamental concern here, is that we will not be able to make full use of the market access terms that the U.S. fought so hard to secure from Canada under USMCA, that we won’t be able to ship as much product as we hoped to, and/or, that we’ll be able to only ship lower value products.”

And she said it’s not just about Canada.

“Particularly on the safeguards that the agreement puts in place, for a number of common cheese names, as well as upgrades to food safety-related trade requirements—so-called sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. Those are the types of advances that we think would be great to help fold in, and continue to improve on, in other FTAs.”

Including, she said, any free trade agreement negotiated with Kenya.

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