Wednesday, July 1, 2020
BISMARCK, N.D. – The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) goes into effect today.
“The USMCA brings relationships with our two closest trading partners into the 21st century,” Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said. “The agreement includes improvements for food and agriculture that will better serve farmers, ranchers and businesses and will lead to fairer trade and expanded exports.”
Some of the key achievements include:
- Expanded access for American food and ag products
- Elimination of Canada’s milk classes 6 and 7
- Addressing agricultural biotechnology to support 21st century innovations
- Reducing trade-distorting policies, improves transparency and ensures non-discriminatory treatment for agricultural product standards
- Ensuring fair treatment for quality requirements for wheat and other ag products
- Enhancing rules for science-based sanitary and phytosanitary measures
- Providing important disciplines on geographic indications
- Allowing market access for certain cheese names
- Prohibiting barriers for alcohol beverages
- Providing protections for proprietary food formulas