CONTACTS:

CONTACTS:

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

Alan Levitt, USDEC PHONE: (703) 528-4801 FAX: 703-528-3705 alevitt@usdec.org

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) today thanked a bipartisan group of 22 senators for urging the Obama administration to increase market access for U.S. dairy products into Canada and Japan as part of any final Pacific Rim trade agreement.

In a letter led by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman the senators asked that the U.S. secure significant market access benefits across all dairy products, particularly into Japan and Canada, in ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. In addition to underscoring the critical importance of achieving these export gains, the letter also pointed to the need to avoid an imbalanced outcome that grants more access to our competitors than the U.S. gains into Canada and Japan.

One third of the Senate Finance Committee, including Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR), were among the bipartisan group of Senators sending this message to U.S. negotiators.

“We applaud this Senate message recognizing that a final Pacific Rim trade agreement must deliver significant access for U.S. dairy exports, as well as ultimately achieve positive results for U.S. dairy producers by ensuring that any additional New Zealand access to U.S. dairy markets is not higher that the market opening we expect to see from Canada and Japan,” said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern.

Added USDEC President Tom Suber, “The U.S. dairy industry has worked tirelessly for years to help ensure that the final TPP agreement results in strong market access gains in this important region of the world. Now is crunch time. We appreciate this Senate message about the importance of staying the course on market access goals to ensure that this deal creates a positive result that producers and processors can strongly support.”

Dairy is one of the last issues to be resolved in the TPP negotiations, which could be completed by next month.

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The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), 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 (USDEC) 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.