|
Canada's dairy farmers and processors, including Saputo Inc <SAP.TO>
and Parmalat Canada [PLTPRC.UL], struck a pricing agreement in
2016 that industry groups in Australia, New Zealand, the
European Union, Mexico and the United States say would price
domestic milk ingredients for cheese-making below cost,
under-cutting their exports.
On a visit to the U.S. cheese-making state of Wisconsin on
Tuesday, Trump said he would "stand up for our dairy farmers"
adding that "in Canada some very unfair things have happened to
our dairy farmers and others".
Trump did not specify what parts of Canada's tariff-protected
dairy sector he wanted to change, nor what measures he would
take to make it happen, but his remarks re-ignited calls for a
complaint to the World Trade Organization.
The United States is the world's biggest cheese exporter outside
Europe.
"I don't expect there would be many countries that would do
anything other than support a WTO action against Canada," said
Australian Dairy Farmers interim Chief Executive Officer John
McQueen in a telephone call.
New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay told Reuters in an email
that his government was "currently assessing the WTO-consistency"
of Canada's dairy industry policy, and had raised concern with
the Canadian government.
"Together with other dairy exporting countries, including the
U.S., we have questioned these policies at WTO Committee on
Agriculture meetings in Geneva as recently as last month,"
McClay said.
Malcolm Bailey, chairman of the Dairy Companies Association of
New Zealand, said his organization was working with his foreign
ministry to gather information for a possible WTO complaint.
New Zealand, the second biggest non-Europe cheese exporter, is
"quite clearly building a coalition of those prepared to make
the case to the WTO", said Bailey.
"You've got the Americans, the Australians, the Mexicans who are
concerned about this."
(This story was corrected to remove reference to Australia's
cheese exports, paragraph 7)
(Writing by Byron Kaye; Editing by Robert Birsel)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
