NMPF built on its longstanding ties with Mexico during a USDA agricultural trade mission from Nov. 3–6, where Jaime Castaneda, executive vice president for policy development and strategy, and Shawna Morris, executive vice president for trade policy and global affairs, represented the organization as part of the U.S. delegation of agribusinesses and organizations led by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins.
NMPF met with Mexican Undersecretary of Foreign Trade Luis Rosendo Gutierrez and leadership from the Mexican intellectual property office. The delegation also engaged Mexican producer and processor organizations and several major dairy importers.
Castaneda and Morris reinforced to Mexican government officials the importance of preserving and strengthening the mutually beneficial dairy trade relationship between the United States and Mexico. As part of that discussion, NMPF pressed Mexican officials to ensure full implementation of U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) provisions related to the protections of common cheese terms and prior users of generic names. U.S. exporters’ rights to use certain terms are at risk as the European Union advances toward implementation of its updated trade deal with Mexico, which includes various restrictions on the use of common food names.
NMPF will continue to work with the U.S. and Mexican governments to ensure the important bilateral trade relationship is preserved and outstanding issues like the right to use common names are resolved in the USMCA 2026 Joint Review process.
