Trade Promotion Authority Crucial to Ensuring Positive Dairy Result in Pacific Rim Agreement
The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council today thanked the House of Representatives for resuming progress on Trade Promotion Authority by sending stand-alone TPA legislation to the Senate.
The two groups pledged to keep working with both the House and Senate to enact TPA and the important complementary legislation, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). They said Trade Promotion Authority in particular is key to negotiating a better deal for dairy farmers in the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership and future free trade agreements.
"Trade promotion authority is crucial to concluding trade agreements that will open foreign markets to more U.S. dairy products," said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. "In the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, getting TPA in place is essential to increasing pressure on Japan and Canada to improve their offers. It will signal that the United States is serious about trade negotiations."
USDEC President Tom Suber said, "Knowing that a trade agreement will be considered by Congress under Trade Promotion Authority paves the way to press our negotiating partners to make offers on the most sensitive issues that are commensurate with new and meaningful access. Clearly, dairy exports fall into that category, and the U.S. needs all the tools it can muster to get acceptable terms from Japan and Canada that ensure the U.S. is able to secure expanded market access opportunities for all types of dairy products under TPP. Given this, we welcome today's strong step forward toward bringing TPA into law."
TPA, which expired in 2007, is important to the U.S. dairy industry because the United States now exports the equivalent of one-seventh of its milk production. NMPF and USDEC have also supported TAA as a key portion of the U.S. legislative trade package.
6.19.2015