The last hurdle in regaining full access to the United States hard red spring wheat market has been cleared.
On Dec. 12, a panel under the North American Free Trade Agreement made its final decision on an appeal launched two years ago by the Canadian Wheat Board, the board said in a News release
news.
In so doing, the panel rejected a recent challenge by the North Dakota Wheat Commission, the group that began the trade dispute.
Red spring wheat should enter the U.S. without duty as soon as the NAFTA secretariat issues the notice of final panel action, a process that should be completed in the next few weeks.
Costly barrier
The U.S. tariff had originally been set at 14.2 percent, but was lowered to 11.2 percent after a NAFTA ruling was released in June 2005 on a different CWB appeal.
The year before the tariff was imposed, the CWB sold about one million tonnes of hard red spring wheat into the U.S., valued at about $250 million.
