Free Trade

Emma Camp | 8.27.2024 10:07 AM

Officials at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) resisted efforts to temporarily lift tariffs on baby formula imports during the 2022 shortage, documents obtained by ProPublica show.

In emails sent in May 2022, USTR officials pushed back against attempts to remove tariffs on baby formula, citing concerns that loosening tariffs would cause "lots of questions from domestic dairy producers." They even suggested that dairy industry giants should receive "a heads-up right before any press release goes out, so that they don't feel blindsided." By the end of that month, formula out-of-stock rates had reached 74 percent nationally, sending desperate parents scrambling for formula.

The baby formula shortage began in February 2022 after Abbott Nutrition, a major U.S. formula producer, shut down its largest plant and issued several........

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