Below is a statement from the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) on the release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP):

The National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council welcome this morning’s release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement by the Obama administration. The TPP dairy provisions are extremely important to the nation’s dairy industry since today we export nearly 14 percent of all U.S. milk production.

NMPF and USDEC are carefully reviewing the text and will comment when the details have been fully assessed. There are thousands of tariff lines, hundreds of new rules, new chapters on sanitary and phytosanitary requirements, as well as a whole new chapter on protecting common food names. In addition, there are several side letters with exemptions, clarifications and concessions. All must be thoroughly reviewed before we can make a more informed determination of the final impact of the agreement on the U.S. dairy industry, and are able to determine whether or not we recommend that members of Congress support the agreement.

Once again, we express our thanks to the U.S. negotiators for their work, and to the many members of Congress who joined us in urging a balanced dairy market access outcome to the negotiations.  PD

—From National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council news release