In a very characteristic manner, President Trump criticized Canada’s milk policy on Thursday, April 20 during an executive-order signing ceremony for something completely unrelated.
“In Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace,” said Trump, vaguely.
At the time of these comments, Trump was surrounded by steel workers, CEOs of steel companies and union leaders because he was ordering an investigation into steel dumping, but his mind was on milk and our neighbor to the north.
Canada is America’s second-biggest trade partner and is a NAFTA co-member. In his comments, Trump was likely referring to the controversial import taxes Canada has imposed on certain types of American milk, which he called “very, very unfair” earlier in the week while in Wisconsin.
The steep import taxes on certain milk and cheese products basically protect Canadian dairy farmers from imports (because it prevents outside products from being financially competitive). The dairy agreement also subsidizes the export of Canadian dairy products to “unfairly” help Canada compete in third country markets.
Apparently, the issue was still on Trump’s mind a couple of days after he visited Wisconsin.
Obama was at work to improve these trade agreements for American dairy farmers, however he had not made much headway. Trump says, “We’re going to get the solution.” We suspect though, that it’s about to get complicated.