Stop the
milk tax.
Commerce has been listening. Finish the job. If it grants the exclusion, the deposits stop. If it doesn't, you pay through February. The record closes October 9 and a decision could come as soon as next week. Call your Senators and Representative this week and next.
TAKE ACTION BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
This is not theoretical
The government is already collecting money.
Commerce has made preliminary affirmative countervailing-duty determinations. Importers are paying now.
Up to 39.5%
Combined countervailing- and antidumping-duty rate now in effect on covered Indonesian palm-oil-derivative imports. Commerce published preliminary antidumping rates on September 22, stacking on top of the countervailing rates already in force — importers are paying both today.
Indonesia
| Exporter | CVD | AD | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wilmar | 16.48% | 12.32% | 28.80% |
| All others | 16.48% | 19.55% | 36.03% |
| Musim Mas | 16.48% | 23.04% | 39.51% |
Malaysia
| Exporter | CVD | AD | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evyap | 4.32% | 4.47% | 8.87% |
| All others | 4.32% | 5.23% | 9.55% |
| Palm-Oleo | 4.32% | 7.07% | 11.26% |
The scope
A trade rule that ignores how the product is used
Certain fatty acids meeting specified chemical characteristics. The written scope applies regardless of grade, physical form, purity, or packaging.
A product formulated for a dairy ration is swept into the same case as fatty acids headed for soap and cosmetics — because the government is looking at chemistry, not at what the product actually does once it lands here.
That may make sense on a laboratory specification sheet. It makes considerably less sense standing next to a feed bunk.
Dairy farmers did not petition for this case.
Dairy farmers did not create the alleged trade problem.
And they should not absorb the consequences of it.
A chemical definition should not create an agricultural penalty.
There is no domestic replacement
There isn't a palm plantation waiting in Iowa.
Palm comes from a tropical crop. The United States has no commercially scaled domestic palm-oil industry that could replace supplies from Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Malaysia together account for roughly four-fifths of global production — about 67 of 81 million metric tons.
And it isn't just "fat."
High-producing cows need energy-dense diets, and the fatty-acid profile matters as much as the fat. Palmitic acid — C16:0 — behaves differently in the cow than the alternatives. Swapping it is not like swapping one commodity for another.
+$75,000
Annual return from feeding palm-based fatty-acid supplement.
$103,000
swing in one year
−$28,000
The same program, now running at a loss.
−$235,500
And if the supplement leaves the ration entirely
Estimated drop in milk revenue — a different measure from the returns above.
Illustrative, not a prediction for any particular dairy. Every farm has a different ration, milk price, feed cost and production response.
1,036
Licensed dairy herds lost in a single year — 24,645 in 2024 down to 23,609 in 2025.
23,609
Licensed herds left. An industry already consolidating, before this case.
9.71 million
Dairy cows nationwide (USDA NASS, September 22, 2026).
One illustrative 1,000-cow dairy
What this means in real dollars
Using the Commodities Plus model's assumptions for milk price, supplement cost and production response.
How it works
Write or call Congress in 7 steps
Fill in the form below. The tool finds your two senators and your House member, writes a letter from your own answers, and gives you a phone script and the numbers to call.
Have these ready
- Your farm or business name and your email
- How many cows you milk and your role
- Your full farm street address, with town and state
- A few sentences about how your farm runs
Use a street address, not just a ZIP code. Some ZIP codes sit in two districts, and a ZIP alone can show the wrong representative.
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Fill in your details
Add your name, farm or business, email, your role, and how many cows you milk.
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Enter your farm address
The tool checks it against the current district maps and shows your two senators and your House member. Each one has a Washington phone number, a local office number, and a link to their own contact form.
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Answer two questions in your own words
How does your farm run? What would higher feed costs mean for it? This is what makes the letter yours.
Tip: Real numbers help. Write what you would tell a neighbor.
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By phone
Make the call
Your call script fills in your name, town, and farm as you go. Call the Washington office or the local office and read it out.
Tip: Do this before you send the letter. A short call is enough.
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By letter
Read your letter, then send it
Your letter is addressed to your representative by name. It includes your farm details and the number of dairy herds in your state. Change anything that does not sound like you.
Then copy it into your representative's own contact form and press send there. This site does not send it for you.
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Optional
Say yes to a meeting
Tick the box if you would meet your representative in person. A visit from a farmer in their district is the strongest thing you can offer.
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Submit the form
This saves your answers so we can count letters for each office and follow up on meeting offers.
If something goes wrong
The wrong representative showed up
Type your full street address again, with the number, street, town, and state. A ZIP code alone can fall in two districts.
My state shows only one House member
That is correct if your state has a single district for the whole state, such as Vermont or Wyoming.
There is no local office number
Call the Washington office instead. A few members do not list a local office.
The lookup is slow or only shows some members
The tool switches to a built-in list of priority members and still writes your letter. Try again later to see all of your legislators.
My representative's form asks me to prove I'm human
Complete it yourself. This tool never fills in or skips those checks.
What this tool does not do
It does not send anything for you. You send your letter yourself, in your own name.
It does not send you to the Commerce Department. That comment period closed on March 30, 2026, and dairy farmers cannot file there. Your letter and call go to Congress.
What we're asking for
We are not asking for a favor. We are asking for a line.
We are not asking Commerce to abandon antidumping or countervailing duty law. Trade laws exist for a reason and American companies are entitled to use them.
But protecting one American industry should not mean blindly creating costs for another.
Washington already knows there is a scope question. Washington already has the authority to consider it.
Don't assume someone else is calling.
Most of this industry still doesn't know this case exists. No dairy publication has covered it. Every article written so far has been in trade-legal or chemical-industry press, and none of them mention dairy feed.
That's the whole problem in one sentence — a decision about what it costs to feed an American dairy cow is being made in a proceeding where nobody told the dairy industry it was happening.
Where this stands
Petition filed by a single specialty chemical company.
Scope comment window closes.
CVD deposits are owed back to this date for Wilmar and all other Indonesian exporters — backdated 90 days by the July 23 preliminary determination.
AD deposits are owed back to this date for all-other Indonesian exporters only — backdated 90 days by the September 22 preliminary determination. Musim Mas has no retroactive AD exposure. Neither does Malaysia.
Preliminary countervailing duties take effect.
Preliminary antidumping duties take effect.
Scope comments close. Commerce has not yet issued a preliminary scope ruling — the original petition-language scope still governs for now.
Final determinations.
ITC votes.
What people ask us
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Antidumping and countervailing duties are in fact tariffs, that is to say they are taxes which the U.S. government levies on imported goods. When goods are imported the importers pay these taxes at the border and this cost is then passed down the supply chain to the buyers and finally to the consumers. In practice, these duties are collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as cash deposits from the importer at the time of entry, which is why they can take effect immediately and even apply retroactively to shipments already in transit. Whether you refer to it as a duty or as a tax, the money ends up from the same source.
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Not at all. We do not take a stance on whether Vantage is entitled to relief in the markets in which it actually competes—namely, the industrial and personal care chemicals markets. That issue is separate and should be decided by the agencies upon consideration of the evidence.
Our stance is more limited in that the scope of the investigations was intended to cover a chemical and by accident included a livestock feed ingredient which the petitioner neither produces nor sells. This correction has no effect on the case; it only ensures that it is accurate.
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Tallow is not available in the volume that the U.S. dairy industry requires, has a different fatty acid composition, and its price has risen due to demand for renewable fuels. Moreover, it is not suitable for processors and brands which have vegan, kosher, halal, or cruelty-free supply chains.
Grain is not fatty. When you substitute the energy, you have to add starch, and diets high in starch do involve real metabolic risks—such as rumen acidosis, displaced abomasum, and reproductive problems. The producer has to spend more on feed and also more on veterinary treatment and ends up with less milk as a result.
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Feed is the single largest expense on a dairy farm, and since the margins on which the dairy industry operates are so narrow that input shocks are not absorbed but instead passed on to the consumers or cause production to be reduced, either outcome ends up with the same result for consumers. The effects are not felt immediately; it usually takes a year or so for tariff costs to appear fully in retail prices.
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The American Dairy Feed Alliance was set up and is supported by Energy Feeds International, a company owned by a family and which supplies bypass fats and special feed ingredients to the U.S. dairy industry. EFI has a direct commercial interest in the result and states this openly. Producers, nutritionists, and feed manufacturers become involved since it is their costs that are affected.