NMPF Presses USTR on Trade Barriers, New Markets
April 3, 2024
The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) annual National Trade Estimate (NTE) report released Mar. 29 highlights several trade barrier and market access priorities that NMPF and USDEC have pointed out to the agency.
In Oct. 23 comments submitted to USTR as it developed the document, NMPF and USDEC detailed how the United States’ ongoing lack of new tariff-reducing trade agreements and uneven enforcement of existing agreements has put the U.S. dairy industry at a competitive disadvantage. The comments also summarized country-specific barriers that governments around the world are using to impede U.S. dairy exports.
Several of those nontariff barrier concerns were captured in the trade estimate as priorities for USTR, including:
- Canada’s trade-restrictive administration of its U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement dairy tariff-rate-quotas,
- Resolving Egypt’s protectionist and inconsistent Halal requirements,
- Finding a solution for Indonesia’s facility registration delays,
- Complex EU regulatory requirements that risk clogging trade flows.
