Members of Congress Urge Obama Administration to Ensure Trans-Pacific Partnership Benefits are not Undermined
CONTACTS:
Mark O'Keefe, USDEC |
Chris Galen, NMPF |
Peggy Armstrong, IDFA |
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Key members of the U.S. House of Representatives issued a strong statement today affirming the need for the Obama Administration to take concrete steps to address implementation and enforcement issues related to dairy provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.
- Ensuring Canada faithfully implements its TPP commitments and also does not alter existing avenues for U.S. market access.
- Ensuring U.S. trading partners, particularly major markets such as Japan, adhere to the intent of the TPP agreement’s geographical indication (GI) commitments.
- Establishing U.S. procedures to actively ensure compliance with the terms of the market access that the U.S. will provide to TPP trading partners.
####
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.
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), Washington, D.C., represents the nation's dairy manufacturing and marketing industries and their suppliers, with a membership of 550 companies within a $125-billion a year industry. IDFA is composed of three constituent organizations: the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). IDFA's nearly 200 dairy processing members run nearly 600 plant operations, and range from large multi-national organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States. IDFA can be found online at www.idfa.org.