The National Milk Producers Federation applauded the recent announcement from the Trump administration of new trade agreements in Southeast Asia. The agreements were with Malaysia and Cambodia, and new trade agreement frameworks are in place with Thailand and Vietnam. Shawna Morris, the executive vice president of trade policy and global affairs for the National Milk Producers Federation, said it’s welcome news.
“It’s fantastic news for our dairy exporters. Southeast Asia is already a really big destination for our products. The markets down there are really at a dairy deficit. They need a lot more dairy than their local farmers and industry can produce. So, it’s been a very sizable market for our exporters, and the agreements that were announced are going to be able to help increase that significantly as we’re looking ahead.”
After a lot of trade tariff back and forth, she said this is a boost for dairy and the overall agricultural industry.
“To that point, the certainty that we’re getting, particularly in those countries that have announced fully-fledged agreements, such as Malaysia and Cambodia, having something that irons out the terms of trade looking forward is very helpful. As we’re looking at the specifics of that, though, that’s where we’re the most excited. On the normal side of things, you think about trade agreements, you think about tariffs, you know, certainly they’re checking the box really strongly there. Cambodia is totally eliminating the dairy tariff, Malaysia is eliminating almost all of it, and increasing access in the few spots where tariffs are going to remain in place. But then you have a lot of really groundbreaking new commitments in the non-tariff space. That’s one of the biggest areas, particularly with respect to these markets, that we hear about from our members is those red tape regulatory hassles.”
Now that there are some agreements in place, it’s important to keep the trade momentum moving forward.
“These two are great, but we have our eyes on a whole lot more that the administration is also negotiating with. That’s why it was also really encouraging to see those additional frameworks with Vietnam and Thailand announced last weekend, too. Those are also big export destinations for our products already, and also ones where we face tariff disadvantages compared to other suppliers, so we’re hopeful that the administration intends to use the Malaysia and Cambodia agreements as a sort of template with other countries that have announced these more, higher-level framework commitments, and work on turning those into practice as they continue to flesh out those negotiations.”
The trade agreements contain other positive developments for U.S. dairy.
“One of the other big pieces, too, that’s really timely given EU negotiations with other markets in that region, is on common cheese names. We’ve been battling the Europeans in market after market all around the world, pushing back against their efforts to monopolize generic names, things like feta, Parmesan, Romano, and other terms. These agreements with Malaysia and Cambodia, for the first time, have really specific, direct commitments protecting particular common cheese names of products that our producers make. They want to have a fair shot to export to Southeast Asia and other markets, so it’s fantastic to see that type of precedent start to be set.”
These agreements ensure that dairy farmers can keep doing what they do best, which is produce top-quality milk and dairy products for families at home and around the world.