Cheesemakers hit by tariff dispute

Nearly 635 million kilograms of American cheese are in cold storage in the United States. That's roughly 1.8 kilos of cheese for every American, the highest amount since record-keeping began in 1917.

And that amount could go higher as the two main US dairy states - California and Wisconsin - deal with the impact of retaliatory tariffs on dairy products from Mexico and China.

On July 5, Mexico and China put tariffs on $986 million worth of US dairy exports - $408 million worth of cheese to China and $578 million worth of dairy products to Mexico - as retaliation for the Trump administration's tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. US dairy exports totaled $5.5 billion last year, including $1.3 billion to Mexico alone, according to the US Agriculture Department.