Though I’ve noticed our Save-On & Safeway are a bit naughty. A lot of produce is labelled as MEXICO, and was indeed grown in Mexico, but when you look at the label, the company address is printed as a California business (US, not Baja). So when we purchase these Mexican products to avoid sending cash to America, the cash goes to America.
“The adults in the room” previously tried to treat Trumpian colic by laying him on his belly, holding him upright after feeding, and adding thickener to bottle feeds. None of these interventions has been helpful so far.
Cue MAGA: Why is Canada charging so much???!!?
Because you’re there. Now, do you want it or not?
So, now Trump’s blathering about dairy tariffs on Canada? Not at all an expert, but don’t we do quite a bit of trade with them?
Canada’s protectionist dairy industry has irritated the US since long before Trump. Part of it is that the American dairy industry is so huge that without protectionist policies, Canada can’t compete. Part of it is that the USA allows things in dairy that Canada doesn’t (Why is the artificial growth hormone rbST banned in Canada? | Canadian Goodness).
This is why our milk and cheese and butter are so crazy expensive.
I don’t generally approve of protectionism, but these things exist for a reason: it’s not in Canada’s national interest to get all of our dairy from outside the country. From the US perspective, it’s not in their national interest to be locked out of the Canadian market. Tension ensures.
It’s been good for us, though. Before the pandemic it was common to see Canadians (usually Sikhs) with ten gallons of milk in their shopping carts.
Who is “our” in this sentence?
cough Ensues.
DrDrake lives in Canada so I assume he’s talking about Canadian dairy prices.
Trump’s behaviour generally is a very strong argument that Canadians should keep our dairy system to ensure we have a domestic source.
If we had to depend on US dairy, I could easily see Trump or any other MAGA type president trying to block exports of US dairy to Canada as part of an attempt to annex Canada or otherwise put severe economic pressure on us.
We can no longer trust the US as a good neighbour.
I’m sorry, Neighbour. 
On one hand, there is logic to supporting small farmers. Canada is hardly the only country to subsidize farming. Milk and egg prices are more stable than in the US. If Canadians relied more on Wisconsin, they would be cheesed if this dependence was milked for political reasons.
On the other hand, consumers allegedly pay hundreds of dollars more, much product is said to be wasted, and people claim New Zealand was able to develop a strong export market once alternatives were tried. European chefs who open restaurants in Canada have claimed to struggle to get very high quality dairy. I do not have the expertise to evaluate these claims.
We do. There is no doubt of that at all.
Supply management exists largely because of politics, not a desire to help Canadians. The dairy industry holds a lot of sway concentrated in a number of ridings and it’s politically very damaging to not kowtow to it. That’s reality. The common myth that it’s about the QUALITY of dairy is nonsense; dairy quality and health standards are different laws and regulations and can exist just fine without supply management or tariffs.
However, that’s the negative for Canadians. The Americans have no call to bitch about it, because
- THEY PROTECT THEIR INDUSTRY TOO. They do it differently, through monumental levels of welfare. Last I checked the US government was shelling out $20+ billion a year in subsidies to dairy farmers, an amount roughly twice the size of Canada’s entire dairy industry. So,
- Canada has little choice but to protect the dairy industry, because the USA protects theirs. We do it in different ways, but the reality is the US dairy industry is protected and would be at a wildly unfair advantage if ours wasn’t. The anti-dumping tariff quota is a necessary thing.
Sylvain Charlebois is often quoted in the papers about these sorts of things. I have no reason to disbelieve him but it’s not like I have crunched the numbers.
Consistent with this maladministration’s “soak the less wealthy to benefit the truly wealthy”.
I’ve been cutting back on tea for a couple years now because I just can’t handle caffeine the way I could when I was young. But I bought about a six month supply before this tariff stuff started which has insulated me a bit, but when it comes time to resupply I guess I’ll just have to pay the price or do without.
As for the s’mores - I’m a cashier at a glorified grocery store. People still buy the ingredients, they just bitch about the price to the front-line peons. Or sigh and pay it anyway. Like you said, Americans “need” their junk food and if it’s a cook-out people will splurge.
As long as they don’t take their ire out on the front-line retail drones I’m OK with that.
Once again I feel compelled to apologize for that.
Welcome to the club!
I heard something on the news about Trump’s tariff letters going out to different countries. Mostly they’re just boilerplate with different rates for different countries. But the letter to Brasil was different. Trump is threatening higher tariffs if the country continues to prosecute Jair Bolsonaro, a friend of his.
Did this letter contain Trump’s signature? Let’s hear him say “no quid pro quo” when it’s spelled out in black and white over his signature.
Copper is critical to national security, so we will make it more expensive with a 50% tariff.
Paul Krugman shows the first page of the letter in his substack. An awful letter, completely disgusting, mean and stupid. Fully on caracter. And Mr. Krugman, always a good read, shows a couple of inconsistencies, for instance
exports to the U.S. are less than 2 percent of Brazil’s GDP. Does Trump really imagine that he can use tariffs to bully a huge nation, which isn’t even very dependent on the U.S. market, into abandoning democracy?
What he does not say but I wonder: trump has been signing those tariffs because of his assumed powers to fight an emergency. The emergency was fentanyl, or a very unfair trade balance, or gangs, or that you cannot grow pineapples in Alaska. All very bad, of course. But the fact that Brazil has put Bolsonaro on trial is not an emergency in or for the USA, is it? trump has no autority to impose tariffs for the reasons he expresses. It is not a matter that concerns the USA at all. This letter is illegal and a ground for impeachment!
Oh and by the way: he USA has a trade surplus with Brazil. According to the temper tantrump in the White House that means the USA are treating Brazil very unfairly, have done so for years!
Time to hit back.
Same here.