Negotiations Present New Path Forward for U.S.-UK Dairy Trade
May 1, 2020
The U.S. and UK reaffirmed in April their commitment to negotiating a free trade agreement post-Brexit. A U.S.-UK agreement could present a new path forward for the unbalanced trade relationship between the U.S. and the UK, one of the world’s top cheese importers. Ensuring that the UK uses its exit from the European Union as an opportunity to move beyond the EU’s complex, often unfair trade policies is a critical element to that result.
Among NMPF’s top priority areas in UK negotiations is removing geographical indication (GI) restrictions that the EU has put into place to prevent the U.S. from exporting cheeses with common names to the UK and more broadly reforming how the UK deals with GIs.
To that end, NMPF and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) have developed detailed policy recommendations outlining how to best tackle the issue of GIs and common food names. This draft language has been provided to U.S. trade negotiators to help guide successful negotiations. The text builds upon positive precedents that NMPF and USDEC helped champion in USMCA on these topics.
NMPF supports a comprehensive U.S.-UK trade agreement that uproots nontariff barriers to trade and opens up the market for U.S. dairy exports to the UK. The organization will remain engaged throughout the process to ensure that a final deal best positions U.S. dairy to fairly compete.
