[CTC] IUST: National Milk Producers To Decide on TPP ...

[Dolan, Mike]

America's dairy workers' union opposes the TPP.
MFD :: IBT

Daily News
National Milk Producers To Decide TPP Stance At March 8 Board Meeting
February 16, 2016

The board of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), the major U.S. dairy industry association, is slated to decide on the group's position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at its March 8 meeting, according to NMPF Senior Vice President Jaime Castaneda.

Castaneda told reporters on Feb. 11 that NMPF would make its decision at the March board meeting, and confirmed the meeting date in a follow-up email. He spoke to reporters after an event on TPP and agriculture organized by the Washington International Trade Association.

During the event, Castaneda said he expected NMPF to take a national position on TPP instead of leaving it up to members to take individual stances.

He made clear that NMPF was disappointed with TPP's market access outcomes with respect to Canada and Japan, but strongly supportive of the chapter on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures as well as procedural rules on geographical indications (GIs). The U.S. dairy industry was a major proponent of strong SPS and GI rules.

Castaneda said NMPF would take all of those elements into consideration in coming up with its TPP position. In doing so, he implied that the SPS and GI rules may sufficiently compensate for the market access outcome to the extent that NMPF would be able to support -- or at least refrain from opposing -- the TPP agreement.

"I think we're going to have a general national consensus on where we're going to stand with respect to the agreement and how either supportive we're going to be, or how lukewarm, as somebody stated," Castaneda said.

"But I think that the agreement is going to be measured not only from the tariff perspective that actually most people look at it, but again I'm going to reinforce that we brought this concept" of SPS provisions that go beyond the World Organization rules and GI provisions, he said. "So we're going to look at the economic analysis on the tariffs, but we're going to also put a value on these other items of the agreement."

NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council are also seeking clarifications from the Obama administration on several issues related to the implementation of the TPP agreement, the groups said in joint comments to the International Trade Commission in December. But they did not say what these issues were.

Darci Vetter, chief agricultural negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, at the WITA event highlighted one implementation issue that affects the dairy industry and which the administration is working on. It relates to accurately tracking dairy imports so that the U.S. can apply the special safeguards on certain dairy products it negotiated in TPP.

The U.S. secured six country-specific agricultural safeguards in TPP, all of which are for dairy products. The first two cover Swiss cheese and milk powders from Australia. Two other safeguards cover certain cheeses and whole milk powder from New Zealand. Another safeguard covers condensed and evaporated milk from Peru, while the final safeguard covers a wide range of cheeses from Peru.

"When you look at implementing the agreement, and the changes we'll have to make, we want to make sure everyone understands the agreement and the implications of that," Vetter said.

"If you take for example, safeguards that we put in place in the dairy sector, we want to make sure that we're accurately tracking imports and the pace at which those imports come in so that if a safeguard is triggered, we're able to immediately apply it on triggering," she added.


Michael F. Dolan, J.D.
Legislative Representative
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Desk  202.624.6891
Fax    202.624.8973
Cell    202.437.2254

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