Trump imposes a 250% tariff on Canadian dairy products, with absurd reasons
Over the past weekend, President Trump's team has repeatedly mentioned the 250% tariff on Canadian dairy products on American television news programs. Both Trump and his team claim that Canada has imposed tariffs of over 200% on dairy products imported from the United States, while what the United States has done is only a 'reciprocal levy'. While striving to create an "innocent" persona, they have exposed their ignorance because Canada has never imposed such high taxes on American dairy products.
According to local English media CP24, US President Donald Trump once again mentioned in his speech on Friday that Canada has imposed tariffs of over 200% on dairy products imported from the United States. Trump seems to have deliberately used the numbers that surprised Americans to try to cover up a key fact: Canada has never collected this tax.
The so-called 200% tax rate only exists in the agreement between the United States and Canada. Only dairy products exported from the United States to Canada that exceed the duty-free quota will take effect. However, the US dairy industry acknowledges that they have not reached the zero tariff quota limit for exports in any dairy product category, and even in many categories, especially milk, the US export volume has not reached half of the quota.
Image source: CNN
Canadian agricultural trade expert Al Mussell pointed out, "Actually, no one really pays these tariffs." In other words, despite the existence of high tariffs, they have not had a real impact on US dairy exports.
Trump also claimed that the issue of Canadian dairy tariffs had been "well resolved" by the end of his first presidential term, but during the Biden administration, Canada "continuously raised" these tariffs. This statement still does not match the facts. Official documents from Canada and industry organizations from both the United States and Canada have confirmed that Canada did not increase dairy tariffs during the Biden administration. The tariffs criticized by Trump are actually stipulated in the USMCA, which Trump himself negotiated and signed in 2018.
CNN attempted to inquire with the White House about this matter, but they did not respond.
For a long time, Canada's "supply management" policy has supported its farmers by restricting foreign competition and protecting its dairy, egg, and poultry industries. In the last USMCA negotiation, Canada made some concessions by committing to setting annual duty-free import quotas for 14 categories of US dairy products in the new agreement and agreeing to gradually increase these quotas.
As for the high tariffs applicable after exceeding the quota, Trump's negotiating team did not consider it a problem at the time, so the USMCA agreement did not force Canada to lower this tax rate.
Mussel pointed out that the official dairy tariff lists released by Canada for 2025, 2020, and 2017 show that Canada's tariff levels remain unchanged for imported goods exceeding the zero tariff quota. For example, the tariff on over quota cheddar cheese is 245.5%, and the tariff on over quota butter is 298.5% -50 percentage points higher than dairy products. However, when the export volume of the United States has not filled the tax-free quota, these tax rate numbers have no meaning at all.
For Trump, the purpose of these tax rates may be to become a reason for him to wield the tariff stick against Canada.
Of course, the US dairy industry is still dissatisfied with Canada's tariff policies. On the one hand, they acknowledge that the United States has not yet reached Canada's duty-free quota, and on the other hand, the International Dairy Foods Association has been accusing Canadians of artificially creating unfair barriers that make it "increasingly difficult" for the United States to export dairy products to Canada.
Based on these allegations, Trump claimed in February this year that "Canada basically does not accept our agricultural products," but the fact is not so. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture, Canada is actually the second largest market for US agricultural products worldwide. In 2024, Canada imported approximately $28.4 billion worth of agricultural products from the United States. Meanwhile, Canada is also the second largest overseas market for US dairy products, importing approximately $1.1 billion worth of US dairy products in 2024, an amount that has steadily increased over the past decade.
Source link:
https://www.cp24.com/politics/2025/03/10/fact-check-what-trump-doesnt-mention-about-canadas-dairy-tariffs/