Oh, FFS, Leave Canada Out of This, Donald Trump

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | April 25, 2017 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | April 25, 2017 |

Donald Trump has embarrassed us with Mexico, with Germany, with Australia, and even with China, and not content to spoil our reputation with our cousins and other members of our international family, now the man is going after our best friend, Canada, and for no good goddamn reason.

Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2017

OK, one: Wisconsin doesn’t technically border Canada, and two, what are you talking about, Trump?

He also said this last Thursday:

“Canada … what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. Rules, regulations, different things have changed, and our farmers in Wisconsin and New York State are being put out of business.”

OK, here’s what’s happening, which Trump would understand if he did 5 minutes of research instead of listening to some report he heard on Fox News. There’s a worldwide milk glut. There’s too much f**king milk for two reasons: Because people at Whole Foods got tired of eating Greek yogurt and moved on to a new fad, and because a few years ago, cow farmers figured out how to get a lot more milk out of their cows.

So now the United States and Canada have too much milk on their hands, so Canada smartly looked out for themselves and basically lowered the cost of milk in their country so that Canadians would buy more milk from Canadian farmers, which is effectively putting some Wisconsin dairy farmers — who relied on the Canadian market — out of business.

Is it Canada’s fault? No, not at all. They’re just looking out for their own dairy farmers, and they have no obligation to keep their prices artificially high so that Canadians will buy milk from Wisconsin. This is not even a Canadian government regulation: It’s the dairy industry in Canada that sets the prices. So it’s not even “Canada” that’s creating the problem; it’s the Canadian dairy industry. It doesn’t help, either, that the American dollar is stronger than the Canadian dollar, which makes our exports even more expensive.

Anyway, American dairy farmers and Trump are upset, because we’re entitled fucking Americans who apparently feel like other countries owe it to us to prioritize our business interests over their own, and now Trump is threatening a goddamn trade war over milk. That is going to be difficult to do since Canada exports very little milk to America anyway, so Trump can hike up the milk tariffs all he wants, but it won’t do a damn bit of good to slap on a 20 percent tariff on a product we don’t even import.

If he really wants to help dairy farmers in Wisconsin, he should create more interest in milk (Trump brand yogurt!) or increase subsidies to Wisconsin dairy farmers and, I dunno, I’m just spitballing here: Let the free market sort itself out, which might mean that a few dairy farmers lose their jobs because there’s too much supply and not enough demand.

Also, as our Canadian commenters have pointed out here several times, Canadian milk comes in bags, which is probably another reason why Canadian milk is cheaper and, I assume, more environmentally friendly. I bet it taste weird in a bag, though.

Background: Buffalo News