NMPF’s Tony Rice joined the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in a trip to the United Kingdom June 11-16 to help promote U.S.-UK dairy trade.
Rice met with U.S. and UK government officials to discuss the United Kingdom’s proposed new dairy health certificate approach and to push for the United Kingdom to unilaterally reduce its World Trade Organization Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs for a range of dairy imports.
The trip followed a June 7 letter signed by NMPF and other leading agricultural organizations calling on Congress to support the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism (UNITED) Act – a bipartisan bill in both chambers that would grant the administration trade promotion authority to specifically negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
NMPF’s Jaime Castaneda was in Thailand for meetings June 19-23 to advance two MFN dairy tariff reduction projects in Thailand and in neighboring Indonesia. Castaneda also met with Thai officials to discuss the government’s handling of EU demands to restrict common cheese names like “parmesan.”
Castaneda also met with Thai dairy importers to discuss how limited sourcing choice is affecting their businesses and how they could support MFN tariff-reduction efforts to give them more options. Additional meetings with Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Bangkok focused on common cheese name restrictions. The Thai government plans to resume free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union in September.