With a trade war in its early stages against China, the election of a left-wing populist in Mexico, and several new cases against trading partners in the World Trade Organization (WTO), there aren’t a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the state of free trade in the United States. Unfortunately, the outlook in Canada is no better. Negotiations on NAFTA have been at a standstill since the Trump administration demanded that Canada accept a sunset clause to the agreement and abandon its unfair trade policies that protect its dairy industry, often referred to as supply management.
Trump is right to call out Canada’s trade policies on dairy. But he neglects to mention the trade-distorting subsidies that the United States grants to its own dairy farmers. In 2015, U.S. dairy farmers received $22.2 billion in direct and indirect subsidies, according to a report commissioned by the Dairy Farmers of Canada. In other words, there are people to blame on “both sides”, writes Evan Haynes in his latest piece at Reason.
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