{"id":74339,"date":"2025-07-19T03:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T03:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74339\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T03:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T03:19:10","slug":"canada-shores-up-new-zealand-trade-with-dairy-concessions-in-face-of-u-s-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74339\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada shores up New Zealand trade with dairy concessions in face of U.S. pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

FILE PHOTO: Cows are seen near the fence of a pastoral farm near Auckland in this August 6, 2013 file photo. REUTERS\/Nigel Marple\/\/File PhotoNigel Marple\/Reuters<\/p>\n

New Zealand should be able to sell more dairy per year into Canada as Ottawa makes changes to rules about imports in a bid to shore up trade between the two nations as the trade war with the U.S. wages on. <\/p>\n

The changes, announced Thursday, mean Canadian importers of New Zealand dairy will be able to access tariff rate quota to sell into the Canadian market faster and more efficiently starting next year. The move is expected to result in up to $128-million in extra trade, according to<\/a> the New Zealand ministry of trade and investment. <\/p>\n

Dairy imports into Canada are controlled under the country\u2019s supply management system. Imported products face steep levies that can surpass 250 per cent unless they have a tariff rate quota.<\/p>\n

The changes will move up the timeline by which importers need to return unused TRQ, which will then be reallocated to other companies. <\/p>\n

Canada will also introduce penalties for importers who do not use the TRQ they receive. <\/p>\n

The dairy industry\u2019s outsized political influence, explained in charts<\/a><\/p>\n

The concession addresses New Zealand\u2019s long-standing allegations that Canada\u2019s TRQ allocation system has prevented the country from penetrating the market to the degree promised in the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. <\/p>\n

Last year, New Zealand threatened retaliatory tariffs unless Canada made changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a long time coming and we believe it will make a positive difference,\u201d said Kimberly Crewther, executive director of The Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, in a press release<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The deal raises questions about whether the U.S. \u2013 which is also demanding Canada make changes to the rules around dairy import licenses \u2013 will receive similar concessions. Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are currently negotiating a trade deal with a deadline of Aug. 1.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Canada is seeking to stabilize relations with other nations to diversify trade from the U.S. Mr. Carney said this week that a trade deal with the U.S. is unlikely to be tariff-free<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada and New Zealand, like a lot of countries, are trying to put their trade relationships on solid ground in the face of Trump\u2019s actions,\u201d said Matthew Kronby, a partner in the international trade and investment practice at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. Mr. Kronby has represented the Canadian dairy industry in trade disputes. <\/p>\n

We must protect supply management from the trade war<\/a><\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s dairy exports to Canada have consistently fallen short of the volumes set out in the CPTPP. Some of this is a matter of market forces, said Mr. Kronby. A trade deal is not a guarantee of market demand.<\/p>\n

However, the island nation has also blamed Canada\u2019s licensing import rules. <\/p>\n

In its submissions to the CPTPP panel<\/a> in a dispute initiated in 2022, New Zealand claimed Canada\u2019s TRQ allocation system was designed to direct quota away from those who would use it \u2013 retailers \u2013 and toward those who would not \u2013 processors.<\/p>\n

The panel found that Canada\u2019s allocation system was in breach of its trade commitments. But until this week\u2019s announcement, Canada failed to fully comply with the changes required, according to New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The changes bring an end to the dispute, despite falling short of New Zealand\u2019s hopes for an \u201con demand\u201d system that would give quota to the importers who want it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis outcome shows how Canada and New Zealand, key CPTPP partners, worked together to use the mechanisms established under the trade agreement to resolve differences,\u201d said a statement from Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade, and Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. <\/p>\n

The announcement could have implications for the U.S., which has also launched disputes under the USMCA on the topic of import licenses. Like New Zealand, the U.S. says the TRQ allocation mechanism is too restrictive. It wants retailers and food service companies to be able to import American dairy, and blames the TRQ allocation system for why exporters do not meet export volumes. But its demands go further than New Zealand\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada cheated us from our right to export the USMCA quantities under the quota and we want every single pound to be restored and we want the people who are going to use the product to be the ones importing it, not the processors,\u201d said Jaime Castaneda, executive vice-president for policy and strategy at the U.S. Dairy Export Council. <\/p>\n

The deal with New Zealand is a testament to the benefits of a rules-based trade approach, said Mr. Kronby. However, he added that because the U.S. has shifted away from that system, it is unlikely that Canada will give the country large concessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is hard for me to imagine Canadian negotiators making fundamental changes to supply management in order to get a temporary \u2013 at best \u2013 semi or quasi deal with the Trump administration \u2026 an administration that\u2019s demonstrated that even if you have a formal trade deal, they\u2019re not going to abide by it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: FILE PHOTO: Cows are seen near the fence of a pastoral farm near…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,10738,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-74339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-ne-i","10":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114877744480360678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}