BC Dairy Association sets Trump straight on cross-border trade

BURNABY (NEWS 1130) – The BC Dairy Association is calling US President Donald Trump’s comments last week about the Canadian dairy industry ‘disingenuous.’

Trump was suggesting our dairy farmers exploit theirs.

“We can’t let Canada, or anybody else, take advantage and do what they did to our workers and to our farmers,” he said.

“What they’ve done to our dairy farm workers is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace,” the president went on to say.

Trevor Hargreaves with the BC Dairy Association believes Trump could have been referring to a relatively new Canadian policy, where Canadian milk bottlers and marketers have agreed to buy more Canadian product.

“I found it ironic that at a buy-American rally, he was chastising Canadians for buying Canadian.”

Hargreaves says Americans don’t have to worry too much about any trade imbalance.

“One of the things I think that is a key point here is that America exports a lot more dairy into Canada than Canada exports to America.”

He says if Trump wants to talk about unfair trade practices, he should look at how US farmers are subsidized.

“At the end of the day the US is funding its processors close to a trillion dollars a year under the US farm bill. That’s offsetting the cost of production for the farmers to make milk. That’s the government, in other words taxpayers, subsidizing the costs to those farmers.”

Canadian dairy farmers don’t get subsidies but their industry is protected by a supply management system – ensuring consumers pay certain prices for their dairy products.

Hargreaves is impressed by how the Trudeau government has handled the situation, saying it has demonstrated in depth knowledge of the benefits of supply management.

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