Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is calling for a favorable dairy trade for North Country dairy farmers.

The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is planning to take action to address Canada’s breach of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and proper access to the Canadian market for area dairy farmers, officials say.

“I am proud to announce that, following my advocacy, USTR is continuing to work to ensure our dairy farmers will receive well-deserved access to the Canadian dairy market," Stefanik said. “Our dairy farmers work hard to provide delicious and nutritious products for our communities and deserve the expanded market access they were promised as part of USMCA. I will continue to work to ensure Canada fully abides by its dairy market access commitments, and I will continue to advocate for results for Upstate dairy farmers.”

If the panel confirms that Canada has been violating its obligations under USMCA, the U.S. would be granted the right to impose retaliatory duties if Canada fails to fix its unfair tariff-rate quota administrative practices.

In May 2021, Stefanik sent a letter to United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, encouraging USTR to fully enforce dairy provisions in USMCA.

In January 2022 USTR announced they had 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 Trade Representative Katherine Tai to reject Canada’s proposed changes to their dairy tariff-rate quotas under the USMCA.