Market Reports

Now that an updated trilateral free trade agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada is tentatively in place, dairy industry players are combing through the details to get a sense of what will happen once the terms of the deal become effective in 2020.

News that American and Mexican trade authorities reached a tentative agreement on an updated NAFTA was welcomed by the dairy industry with open arms. But it's far from a sure thing: If Canada doesn't also buy into the deal, a new NAFTA will be sunk.

It’s strange how much can change over the course of a year and yet we end up almost where we started. Here we are again at the end of summer, back to talking about a butterfat shortage in Europe.

It become obvious this spring and summer that the dairy industry was climbing out of the bearish period that marked late 2017 and early 2018, even in the face of tariffs and trade uncertainty. But as we dig a bit deeper, we've noticed a different trend, one which bodes far worse over the long term than tariffs.

When Mexico announced its retaliation to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in early June, those affected by new tariffs predictably flipped out. It included the dairy industry, as cheese was among products newly subject to levies. But is the industry’s frantic reaction warranted?

Recent moves and counter moves in international trade have everyone nervous about how new tariffs announced by the Chinese and American governments will affect their ability to do profitable business in a global economy. Dairy is no exception. But an examination of what key players are actually doing will show that threatening rhetoric may not reflect reality.