U.S. Dairy Happy With Colombian Court Decision

The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council welcomed the government of Colombia’s dismissal of a Subsidies and Countervailing Measures investigation into milk powder imports from the U.S.  The investigation began in 2024 and alleged, without a factual basis, that U.S. milk powders were unfairly subsidized and harmed Colombian dairy producers.

Jaime Castaneda, the vice president for policy development and strategy for NMPF and USDEC, said that’s never been the case.

"We went through an entire investigation process, which is very costly and very expensive and very detail-oriented, in which we had to create a lot of information to submit to the Colombian government," Castaneda said.  "So, after basically a year and a half, almost two years of working through that, the Colombian government decided to reject that request for an investigation, because there was no merit in all their results. In all their answers to the questionnaires, they basically indicated that the U.S. government doesn't really subsidize their exports.”

The two organizations collaborated to coordinate a multi-faceted response to the dispute over milk powder.

“A lot of milk powder is used on many, many applications," Castaneda said.  "And in fact, we have argued that our exports into Colombia not only help consumers in Colombia, but it also helps dairy farmers in Colombia because it expands the pool of the ability of companies that, if they didn't have that milk powder, they wouldn't be acquiring fluid milk.  Basically, it was milk powder, and we were at number one exporting milk powder into Colombia, major importers from Nestle to domestic local companies, and certainly the politically-motivated Colombian government actions were just to try to appease the dairy farmers.”

This is a big victory for the U.S. dairy industry, which Castaneda said has grown more focused on exports during his 27 years with the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

“Basically, we have moved from a very inward-looking industry to a very export-oriented one," Castaneda said.  "Today, dairy farmers depend heavily on exports for their income, their revenue, as well as many manufacturing organizations. Not only co-ops, but also private companies. The fact that exports are so important, we need to make sure that we maintain every single market access that has been negotiated and that we are currently exporting to. Not only that, but we also need new markets, and this is why we appreciate the Trump administration negotiating and trying to expand new markets for U.S. dairy.”

That’s why, he said, it’s so important to make sure our U.S. trading partners honor their agreements.

“Extremely important," Castaneda said  "Exports have such an important role, and I'm not denying that our market is still the most important part of our revenue. But as we see, for instance, the butterfat prices, and we see the cheese prices that we have seen today, and we know that actually farmers are hurting or having a difficult time. And if we were not for dairy and beef, we would be having a much bigger problem. Exports have become even more critical to the overall bottom line for dairy farmers, so this is why it’s so important to make sure that our trading partners comply with their commitments.”

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