IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v131y2025ics0306919225000053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade protection via tariff rate quota administration

Author

Listed:
  • Schaefer, K. Aleks
  • Wolf, Christopher A.

Abstract

In January 2022, the first dispute settlement panel convened under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ruled that administration procedures for Canadian tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on U.S. dairy products violated Canadian trade obligations. Canada subsequently published new dairy quota administration policies to comply with the ruling. Using a dataset with monthly bilateral dairy trade flows at the 6-digit level from January 2014 to October 2023, we empirically assess the economic outcomes associated with this dispute from the perspective of the U.S. dairy industry. We find that — even under Canada’s original quota administration procedures — Canadian dairy TRQ concessions represented meaningful trade liberalization relative to the pre-USMCA status quo. However, in light of Canada’s revised procedures following the panel ruling, U.S. exports to Canada experienced a substantial increase for affected dairy products. This indicates that Canada’s original quota administration procedures represented a “binding” trade restriction beyond the negotiated quota. USMCA dispute settlement procedures effectively worked to remove the barrier.

Suggested Citation

  • Schaefer, K. Aleks & Wolf, Christopher A., 2025. "Trade protection via tariff rate quota administration," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:131:y:2025:i:c:s0306919225000053
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919225000053
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102801?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    USMCA; Dispute settlement; Tariff rate quotas; Quota administration; Dairy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:131:y:2025:i:c:s0306919225000053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.