Dairy producers ask Trump to suspend tariffs imposed on Mexico

Today, more than 60 companies and dairy farmers in the United States have requested US President Donald Trump to suspend the metal tariffs imposed on Mexico due to the direct consequences of the nation’s tariff retaliation on their business models.

In a letter, the dairy producers informed Trump that Mexico was the main importer of American dairy products , with a 25% of total exports .

In the cheese industry only, the United States sells over 400 million dollars every year to their neighbor in the south, and has now been severely affected by the 25% tariff imposed by the Mexican government in retaliation to the metal tariffs.

The letter stated that Mexico was their “ most reliable business partner ” given that “unlike Canada, it has served as an ideal model for the free trade of dairy products in the United States for a long time.”

“Unfortunately, our fees in the Mexican market are in grave danger,” the producers stressed, since the cheese tariffs are expected to “reduce foreign demand of high quality American dairy products, which are made all over the country and represent over 3 million jobs .”

“To make things worse, our competitors in the European Union will take advantage of this opportunity to gain market shares through their new free trade agreement with Mexico,” they stated,

“Allowing for the cheese tariffs in Mexico to continue will only help the European Union at a market in which the United States has been the main provider for a very long time,” they added.

This is why dairy farmers have asked Trump to “suspend tariffs to Mexican producers on aluminum and steel,” at least until the renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) concludes.

On June 1 , the United States started imposing 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum to Mexico, Canada, and the European Union after lifting exemptions to release its partners from global metal taxes.

Mexico retaliated

by imposing tariffs on flat steel, lamps, pork products, apples, grapes, cranberries, and several types of cheese .

dm