And the prime minister says he will continue to protect Canada’s agriculture producers, including the supply management system, as he tries to engage in “fact-based” conversation with the US administration on a variety of trade irritants. “It’s a dire situation for the dairy farmers right now”.
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MacNaughton says the facts don’t bear out that Canada’s policies are the cause of financial loss for USA dairy farmers.
“It’s on the front burner of our minds, for sure”.
Trump promised on a trip to Wisconsin on Tuesday to “stand up for our dairy farmers because in Canada some very unfair things have happened”.
Lawmakers from dairy producing states like Wisconsin and NY, as well as American dairy organisations, have been lobbying the president for months to take on the Canadian dairy industry for practices they say are in violation of trade commitments.
“I don’t think farmers have anything to worry about”, he says.
Trump’s commitment came Tuesday after Grassland Dairy Products dropped dozens of Wisconsin farmers after losing sales to Canada.
“That’s only a short-term advantage for them. The only way it could be a long-term advantage for them is if they put our farmers out of business”.
“We can’t produce milk against the U.S. Treasury”, he said.
A few years back, USA dairy farmers began exporting high volumes of a new class of milk – diafiltered or ultra-filtered milk, used for making cheese – to Canada. The first is Canada’s supply-management system for dairy and poultry products.
Brown suggested Trump’s rhetoric could affect not only the local area’s large dairy sector, but other sectors such as eggs and poultry, pointing to the importance of egg producer Burnbrae Farms as a local employer.
The U.S. dairy groups, however, said their difficulty in exporting dairy products to Canada were a “direct consequence” of Canada’s National Ingredients Strategy and new Class 7 milk pricing program.
But if the US swamped Canada’s capacity to fight on a lot of trade fronts, it might be forced to settle some, regardless of merit, he said. “It’s certainly is concerning …”
But Trump’s words have already drawn out the best cover they could possibly hope for: unambiguous political support from Justin Trudeau’s government, even as those same Liberals were otherwise trying to avoid coming to blows with the Republicans now in charge. “He’s under the impression that every time he speaks, people are going to jump and that’s not how it works”. Daniel Smith, a state agriculture administrator, said 44 of those farms still haven’t found alternatives. While threats to dismantle their protections are concerning, farmers aren’t panicking yet.
Canada’s ambassador says that Canada is being unfairly maligned.
“You’ve got the Americans, the Australians, the Mexicans who are concerned about this”. “But Mr. Trump is famous for saying things, and then later walking it back a bit”. “The U.S.is the elephant”.
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“By virtue of economic weight alone, Trump has the overwhelming leverage to force open the protected Canadian dairy sector”, said Canadian trade lawyer Larry Herman. “We can actually make a change to a system which started 50 years ago, it is become completely distorted now”, she said. “That’s a good time to label someone as the bad guy”.
