CONTACTS:

Chris Galen, NMPF PHONE: (703) 243-6111 FAX: 703-841-9328 cgalen@nmpf.org

Mark O'Keefe, USDEC PHONE: (703) 528-4812

ARLINGTON, VA – The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council welcome this morning’s release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement by the Obama administration. The TPP dairy provisions are extremely important to the nation’s dairy industry since today we export nearly 14 percent of all U.S. milk production.

NMPF and USDEC are carefully reviewing the text and will comment when the details have been fully assessed. There are thousands of tariff lines, hundreds of new rules, new chapters on Sanitary & Phytosanitary requirements, as well as a whole new chapter on protecting common food names. In addition, there are several side letters with exemptions, clarifications and concessions. All must be thoroughly reviewed before we can make a more informed determination of the final impact of the agreement on the U.S. dairy industry, and are able to determine whether or not we recommend that members of Congress support the agreement.

Once again, we express our thanks to the U.S. negotiators for their work, and to the many members of Congress who joined us in urging a balanced dairy market access outcome to the negotiations.

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The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, Va., develops and carries out policies that advance the well-being of U.S. dairy producers and the cooperatives they collectively own. The members of NMPF's cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S, milk supply, making NMPF the voice of nearly 32,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. For more on NMPF's activities, visit www.nmpf.org.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council is a non-profit, independent membership organization that represents the global trade interests of U.S. dairy producers, proprietary processors and cooperatives, ingredient suppliers and export traders. Its mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and assist the U.S. industry to increase its global dairy ingredient sales and exports of U.S. dairy products. USDEC accomplishes this through programs in market development that build global demand for U.S. dairy products, resolve market access barriers and advance industry trade policy goals. USDEC is supported by staff across the United States and overseas in Mexico, South America, Asia, Middle East and Europe. The U.S. Dairy Export Council prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, disability, national origin, race, color, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs, marital status, military status, and arrest or conviction record. www.usdec.org.