News that an agreement with the United States’ closest trading partners was a step closer from being finalized came as much needed good news according to Winslow dairy producer Lowell Mueller.“We’ve been hoping for this for two years,” Mueller said.Mueller and his two brothers run an operation that has been in their family for more than 150 years. The US Mexico-Canada Agreement replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was to set to expire.Mueller said the old agreement had good trade provisions with Mexico but hindered exporting some U.S. dairy products to Canada. “It was unfair and we’re hopeful the new trade agreement will help that”U.S. dairy producers have been hit especially hard the last four years due to low prices according to Mueller. So far this year, 18 Nebraska dairy operations have gone out of business.“You can survive maybe a year or two but when you’ve gone four years of losses, it really adds up,” said Mueller.He said some producers were also affected by spring floods.“It has been rough, especially getting in the crops late. A lot of farmers had ground flooded they didn’t even to plant,” Mueller said.Mexico is Nebraska’s biggest customer for milk. Mueller said he is hoping the new deal will mean additional trade and make dairy operations profitable again.“The bottom line is we’re not going to be a whole lot better off yet this year because we still have fairly low grain prices and milk prices. While they’ve come up the last month, they were still very low the whole year. You have to optimistic in the long term,” Mueller said.