U.S. Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers want to ensure Canada lives up to its commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), particularly its dairy provisions.
“The USMCA was negotiated to benefit America and Canada alike, but our dairy industry won’t see the benefits unless Canada upholds their end of the deal,” Rep. Valadao said. “We need to enforce our trade agreements to protect fair market access for dairy farmers and manufacturers in the Central Valley.
“As the representative of our nation’s largest dairy district, I will continue working to ensure Canada upholds their commitments to the U.S. dairy industry,” he said in an April 6 statement.
Rep. Valadao also joined seven other members, including U.S. Reps. Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-PA), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), and Ron Kind (D-WI), in requesting that U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack ensure American farmers, manufacturers, workers, and others benefit fully from the USMCA.
“Harnessing the full use of USMCA’s expanded access for U.S. dairy exports remains a key priority for dairy farmers and manufacturers employing thousands of Americans in our districts and across the country,” the lawmakers wrote in an April 5 letter sent to Tai and Vilsack. “We appreciate the strong action taken by the administration in moving forward with USMCA’s first dispute settlement case, which found that Canada is improperly limiting access to its dairy market in contravention of USMCA.
“Translating this win into an outcome that delivers the full benefit of the agreement is vital for America’s dairy industry,” they wrote.
Rep. Valadao and his colleagues “noted with interest” Canada’s recently proposed allocation and administration policy changes for dairy tariff-rate quotas (TRQs), saying they think the proposal would continue to fall short of what USMCA requires. “Accordingly, we urge you to insist on much deeper reforms to bring Canada’s dairy TRQ allocation system into compliance with its USMCA commitments,” according to their letter.
They also pointed out that the next decisions made by the United States government will send a clear signal to its trading partners regarding future dispute panels and the degree of compliance the U.S. will require.
“A deal’s a deal; it’s not too much to ask that our trading partners live up to their end of the bargain,” wrote Rep. Valadao and the members. “That is why it is critical that this compliance stage of the USMCA dairy case demonstrate that the USMCA enforcement process works.”