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Irish dairy farmers could be among the biggest losers in an international row over jumbo jets.
The US and Europe have been at loggerheads for years over subsidies paid to Boeing and Airbus. The US has hit back with a tariff retaliation list, aimed squarely at European imports into the US. It includes European butter – and Irish butter is the vast majority of that.
View from Washington
As part of the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) international tour to Washington last week, a group met with Jim Mulhern, president of the US National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).
He recently testified at a public hearing that US dairy farmers and farmer-owned dairy co-operatives “strongly support United States Trade Representative's proposed imposition of retaliatory tariffs on European dairy products in response to the $11bn in damage European Airbus subsidies have caused in the United States”.
Speaking to the ASA group, he said: “Although this gave me no pleasure, as I have no problem with Irish butter specifically, I do have a problem with EU policies in general and I make no apologies for this.”
The balance of trade between the EU and the US is a serious source of contention.
US-EU trade
Mulhern said America's dairy trade deficit with the EU last year was $1.6bn. The US imported $1.8bn worth of EU dairy products, whereas the EU only purchased $145m of American dairy products.
After Germany, Ireland runs the biggest trade surplus with the US. This is mainly pharmaceuticals, but Irish butter makes up 88% of EU butter exported to the US.
Mulhern testified that “including EU cheeses, yoghurt and butter on this list, as USTR has proposed, is entirely warranted”.
He went on to encourage the USTR to add additional EU dairy-related tariff lines.
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