Amidst the escalating effects of the China-US trade war, the US dairy farming industry was now able to find solace and support from new trade agreements with Canada in North America and in the Philippine market.
Milk prices in the US have been going down rapidly for four years already due to the huge spike of supply in the country.
This situation poised great danger for the US dairy farming industry. However, a report from Reuters said that a handful of new trade deals and agreements could soon turn the tide for the milk farmers.
As pointed out by the news agency, the imploding US dairy industry is one of the many concerns raised by the Trump administration during the renegotiations of the free trade deal it signed between Canada and Mexico last month.
Part of the deal was for the cooperating nations to give US farmers the concessions to export their products. Canada was reportedly the first to answer to the demand which Trump claimed to be a big victory for domestic milk traders who now gained more market access for their produce.
Although Ottawa has only opened less than 4 percent of its dairy market to its American counterpart, the office of the US Agriculture Secretary, headed by Sonny Perdue, remained optimistic that this deal could be a start for the US dairy industry to gain traction on the international market.
The farmers, meanwhile, are quite cynical about this new development which, according to them, is just a way to catch votes from members of the sectors.
For them, the only way to fix the staggering low prices due to oversupply is for the country to produce less milk, which means closing down a significant number of farms or increase the consumption rate.
Philippine Trade Relations
But all hope is not lost. According to this report from Hoards, the US Trade Representative has just announced the progress it made with the Philippines under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) it signed with the Asian country.
The Philippines has always been one of the larger buyers of milk from US dairy producers. Just last year, Manila imported a total of $243 million worth of dairy products.
As pointed out by the industry watcher, Washington, and the Duterte government had come into an agreement that could benefit the agricultural sectors of both countries. This is amidst the rapidly growing market for dairy products in Southeast Asia.
