Canada plans to protect its dairy system under a new North American Free Trade Agreement. As the first round of talks gets underway Wednesday, Canada officials say they will protect the nation’s system of tariffs and quotas that keep domestic dairy prices high and imports low. U.S. dairy farmers strongly dislike the system and want it dismantled. Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland laid out the nation’s goals for NAFTA during a speech Monday. She also suggested that Canada could walk away from the talks if the U.S. pushed to remove a key dispute-settlement mechanism in the trade deal, according to Reuters. Canada opposes Washington’s plan to scrap the so-called Chapter 19 dispute settlement mechanism, under which binational panels made binding decisions on complaints about illegal subsidies and dumping. The United States has frequently lost such cases.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.