U.S., Mexico and Canada sign USMCA

Nov 30, 2018

The deal still requires ratification before it can come into effect

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

American, Canadian and Mexican leaders took another step towards putting an important trade deal into action.

U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) today. Once enacted, this deal will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The deal still needs to be ratified by all three countries before it becomes law.

Canadian dairy farmers aren’t happy with how the USMCA affects their industry.

As part of concessions made to the U.S. during the negotiations, Canada gave up almost 4 per cent of its dairy market to allow American dairy to enter the country. Canada will also eliminate its class 6 and 7 milk prices.

And the dairy industry is particularly concerned about one element of the negotiations.

Under the USMCA, Canada must notify the U.S. before it makes any changes to tariff classifications and allow the U.S. the opportunity to review the change and ask for more information.

Canadian dairy farmers feel the federal government misled them about this part of the agreement.

“At a meeting with your key officials following the announcement of the agreement and publication of the U.S. text, Dairy Farmers of Canada was told that the issue of U.S. oversight had not been agreed to by Canada – and would not be part of the final agreement,” the organization wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau yesterday.

“We remain concerned that we have not yet seen a final text with this portion excluded.”

Canadian dairy producers also worried about how the USMCA will impact their bottom lines.

With more U.S. products coming into the country, producers may not make enough to be able to expand their operations, said Tim Cowan, a dairy farmer from Huron County.

“It seems like the dairy industry gets sacrificed for the sake of other industries,” he said. “We’re trying to create a stable, quality product, but we’re letting in products that might not be as high quality as ours. And you could say that, with all these agreements and the way they hit us, any chance of us expanding was just given away to the U.S.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.