East Greenbush, N.Y. - Today, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik released the following statement after a U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) dispute panel issued a ruling allowing Canadian restrictions on U.S. dairy farmers’ market access to continue despite its obligations under USMCA.
“It is entirely unacceptable that the current Canadian dairy restrictions harming U.S. farmers are allowed to continue. Our dairy farmers in Upstate New York and the North Country work hard to provide delicious and nutritious products for our communities and deserve the market access they were promised under USMCA. This USMCA dispute panel’s decision allows the status quo to continue. This is untenable. I will continue to work to ensure that USMCA is enforced to allow fair market access for our dairy farmers,” stated Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.
In May 2021, Stefanik sent a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai, encouraging USTR to fully enforce dairy provisions in USMCA. Following Stefanik’s advocacy, USTR announced in January 2022 that the agency established a dispute settlement panel to consider Canada’s failure to comply with dairy tariff-rate quota (TRQ) provisions in USMCA. The January 2022 decision resulted from the creation of this panel. In March 2022, Stefanik called on USTR to reject Canada’s proposed changes to their dairy TRQs under USMCA.
In January 2023, following Stefanik’s advocacy, USTR announced the establishment of a second panel to determine whether Canada has been in violation of its market access obligations under USMCA.