President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada is battering the American dairy producers he has repeatedly claimed to be protecting.
In a Thursday article for “The Bulwark,” economics editor Catherine Rampell said U.S. dairy “was supposed to be the one industry President Donald Trump was actually helping.” Instead, she wrote, “American dairy farmers are now saying: Please, stop helping.”
Trump often points to dairy as proof that Canada cheats the U.S. on trade, and he has put Canada’s dairy tariffs at 250 percent or 400 percent, depending on the day. Rampell noted that those steep rates apply only to sales above a tariff-free quota set under the USMCA, the trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term. Citing the International Dairy Foods Association, she reported that U.S. producers have never come close to hitting that cap. The U.S. also sells roughly three times as much dairy to Canada as it buys.
Mateo Kehler, CEO of Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm, told Rampell his Canadian customers disappeared almost overnight last year as tariffs, counter-tariffs and boycotts piled up. His farm’s Winnimere cheese recently won Best of Show from the American Cheese Society.
“I can’t figure out who’s winning here,” Kehler said. “Everybody I know is losing.”
He added that he doesn’t fault Canadian shoppers.
“Honestly, if I were a Canadian consumer, I would not be buying anything from the U.S. either,” he said. “This is a time for resistance, and I applaud Canadians for voting with their dollars.”
The pressure has grown in recent weeks. Canada began imposing a 25 percent tariff on U.S. cheese last month, and this week Trump banned some Canadian dairy imports, mostly whey products, along with Canadian motorcycles and alcohol, according to Rampell.
Pete Hardin, longtime editor of the Wisconsin dairy publication the Milkweed, said two Wisconsin cheese-plant owners told him their large Canadian orders had been canceled.
“The notion that for dairy, Canada is a problem to the U.S. is a joke, in my opinion,” Hardin said.
Rampell had a blunter view, writing that “whatever the f— Trump is doing now is making things worse. For everyone.”
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