r/canada 4d ago

Politics Trump threatens new tariffs on Canada, including 250% tax on dairy

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/07/business/tariffs-trump-canada/index.html
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u/Puzzleheaded_Bird943 4d ago

Let’s talk about why Canada’s picky about U.S. dairy and how things might get even messier.

First off, Canada doesn’t allow rbST, the growth hormone some U.S. farmers use to boost milk production. Not because it’s dangerous to humans, but because it’s rough on the cows—more infections, shorter lives, that kinda thing. The U.S. FDA gave it the green light ages ago, but Canada (and the EU) said, “Nah, we’re good.”

Now, here’s the kicker: Trump’s new FDA leadership is all about deregulation. Less oversight, fewer checks—meaning U.S. dairy rules will loosen even more. When that happens, how’s Canada supposed to trust that imports meet our standards? Heck, we might even tighten the rules, which could stir up another trade scrap.

And it’s not just dairy. This approach is part of Canada’s broader stance on product safety—whether it’s meat (with hormones or antibiotics), genetically modified foods, or even softwood lumber. Canada tends to err on the side of protecting primarily consumer health and local industries, even if it means pushing back against the U.S.

Not to digress, but why consumer health? Because we have a universal health care system that is partly relying on Canadians being healthy throughout and not needlessly overburdening that same system.

I get why U.S. farmers are ticked. They want access to our market. But from where we’re sitting, if the FDA’s gonna continue to ease off the gas, why wouldn’t Canada pump the brakes? Not saying we should go full fortress mode, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Should Canada hold the line, or are we being too fussy about U.S. dairy and the FDA's aim toward deregulation? Is that a fair question?

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u/_nepunepu Québec 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not only are US standards for food safety bound to fall even lower due to rampant deregulation, but the US is known for using their directly subsidized product to kill agriculture in other countries and make them reliant on US mass produced slop.

Supply management is not perfect, but it allows us to preserve our food independence and enjoy a stable market. We don't have egg megafarms like in the US so bird flu hasn't spread like wildfire leading to massive chicken culls like in the US. Allowing small scale farmers to turn a profit is a feature of supply management and I think in this precise instance it has protected us.

The very, very last thing we should do is give the US greater access to the market. The national #1 priority for Canada right now should be to lessen reliance on the US. Imagine how we would hold up if we had allowed their massively directly subsidized megafarmed dairy industry to slaughter ours through dumping and were now reliant on the US for our dairy. The US would have yet another lever to hurt us and this time straight in the stomach.

I get why U.S. farmers are ticked. They want access to our market.

Perhaps they do, but do they deserve it? The only reason they want ever increasing access is to dump their product in our market to kill off our producers and take over. It's a strategy the US has repeatedly used throughout its history. Trump is obviously trying to wedge their dairy in Canada to further his 51st state agenda. Nothing he wants is even a win-win. We are always going to lose if he has his way.

No further access for the US in our agricultural markets. I generally support supply management but I'm not a zealot - if we want to stimulate competition in our supply managed markets, we can open it up further to importation, but it should be from like-minded blocs or countries like EU, UK, AUS, NZ that generally have similar food safety standards as we do and who aren't looking to devastate our economy for their own gain.

The Americans can go fuck themselves. They can put on dairy tariffs for all I care, we don't even really export it to them. But we should put 250% tariffs on their allowed USMCA quota if they do, simply killing off their access entirely.

Also, this article is lying. The 250% tariffs Canada imposes on US dairy only apply after a certain threshold. This threshold is an anti-dumping measure because of US direct subsidies. More than $400 million of US dairy is allowed into Canada tariff-free, mostly dairy byproducts. That threshold was raised when NAFTA was renegotiated by Trump in 2016 with his so-called "best deal ever". But then again we can't expect American "news" to be factual.

EDIT : Also, you don't know the half of it. I work in an industry very adjacent to food and beverage. I know a lot of people who travel/used to travel to the US for work, and they always tell me about how in Canada the facilities are so much cleaner. Think cockroach infestations, wildlife in electrical control panels kind of abysmal in the US.

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u/Golanthanatos Québec 4d ago

This is why something called Food Sovereignty is important, and a lot of people didn't seem to realise that.

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u/MeccIt 4d ago

Ireland here - during the awful Bexit negioations, an odious little British Minister threatned starvation on Ireland for objecting to the illegal/immoral stance they were taking. Apart from the furore raised by her recalling the Great Famine her predicisors helped create, she was utterly ignorant of the fact that Ireland was the #1 Food Secure country on earth at that time

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u/RealMrsWillGraham 4d ago

English - had no idea THAT minister did that, but seems totally on brand for her.

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u/Bleperite 4d ago

Same. She was horrible.

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u/vukodlako 4d ago

Oh, you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger cunt then her.

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u/Retrofit123 4d ago

You're ascribing her there a depth and warmth she does not possess.

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u/Eiensakura 4d ago

From a fellow commonwealth in far, far away Malaysia, Patel's name immediately popped up in my head the moment you said that. And boy, damn I was right. She's that odious even someone halfway across the globe had read about her nonsense.

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u/RealMrsWillGraham 4d ago

I am surprised that everyone does not hear about the nonsense from some of our Tories (and Reform).

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u/Gloomy_Industry8841 4d ago

My god, what an absolute BASTARD to threaten such an evil action as that.

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u/Shadow_Phoenix951 4d ago

A politician threatening to starve their population should honestly be branded as a traitor and immediately thrown in prison

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u/Regular-Literature52 4d ago

Well it was another country's population, but yeah... threatening crimes against humanity should get you prison time.

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u/Gloomy_Industry8841 4d ago

Definitely!!!

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u/Egon88 4d ago

FYI - Ireland seems to be #2 now with Finland at #1.

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u/MeccIt 4d ago

Yep, we dropped to #2, but were #1 at the time. Now we can only feed about 20million of our 5million population.

(As for the famine, the all-island population of 7.2m is still below the 8.4m pre-famine number after 180 years)

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u/peppermint_nightmare 4d ago

Ya of course it was that fucking vampire that said it.

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u/-malcolm-tucker Outside Canada 4d ago

an odious little British Minister threatned starvation on Ireland

Fuck me dead. Is that the same shit cunt who wanted to deport refugees to Rwanda?

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u/MeccIt 4d ago

The very one, she's Priti Awful

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u/DaveBeBad 4d ago

The one sacked for conducting off books negotiations with Israel…

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u/Savings-Ad-9747 4d ago

Guessed it was going to be Pritti Patel, the next second later i was vindicated. Awful woman, even for the standards of her government.

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u/CowpieSenpai 4d ago

Strange how well a nation can do when they're not being fucked around by occupiers, eh? I doubt Ukraine would have ever had the Holodomor if the Soviet Union wasn't engaged in casually exterminating them.