Agricultural trade disputes between Canada and the United States

The History Canada and the U. S. share one of the longest and most commercially active borders in the world. [...] Canada and the United States have each made full use of the DSU and have been involved in 17 cases in the WTO on agricultural issues.7 In a number of other cases, the United States or Canada has joined the requests for consultation and the setting up of a panel: Canada has joined in 11 requests and the United States in four. [...] Canada has been the respondent to only one case where the United States has been the requesting country, and one case where the United States joined the request; the United States had to respond to three requests from Canada directly and another three where Canada joined the request. [...] The composition of Canadian agricultural exports to the United States is shown in Figure 2. What is striking, and valuable for an understanding of bilateral trade disputes, is the rapid expansion of trade in horticultural and animal products, although the latter category fell by a quarter in 2003 because of the first case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada. [...] In this category are those disputes that have centred on the role of the Canadian Wheat Board in the grains market and the provincial boards that control supply in the dairy and poultry industries.