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U.S. dairy leader concerned about EU-Mexico trade deal

USDEC President & CEO Tom Vilsack

U.S. Dairy Export Council CEO and former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says the recently-announced trade deal between the European Union and Mexico was disappointing.  “It’s a disappointment that the free trade agreement, the outline of that agreement includes some commitments by Mexicans on geographic indications.”

And, Vilsack says the EU-Mexico deal is a setback.  “Mexico has all along indicated that they were intent on doing no harm to their industry and to the U.S. industry in terms of cheese and in terms of creating some kind of monopoly for the EU.”

Vilsack says the trade deal would protect 340 common food names as EU exclusive, similar to the trade deal the EU reached with Japan.  “Our hope is that as the rules are basically fleshed out, as the Mexican government takes a closer look at this, and as this agreement gets finalized, that there will be some effort to try to limit the impact and effect of providing the EU basically a monopoly on certain cheese names.”

Vilsack says the EU deals with Mexico and Japan make it imperative that the U.S. complete the NAFTA renegotiations with no further harm, and that includes eliminating what he calls a harmful and distorting Class Seven milk price system.

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