Trade war risks irreparably damaging U.S. dairy

Mexico imports nearly a quarter of the U.S. dairy industry’s exports annually. It’s a critical $1.4 billion marketplace. And it’s one that President Trump continues to risk damaging permanently – and unnecessarily. Locked in a trade war since May, Mexican leaders are setting aside American business connections that took decades to build as our neighbors to the south find new sources of cheese, butter and other products.This should have changed in November when Trump declared success with his newly rechristened U.S.-Canada-Mexico Trade Agreement replacing NAFTA. In retrospect, it was a disingenuous statement: The administration has not lifted steel and aluminum tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products, and – in response – those countries are refusing to sign the pact or lift retaliatory tariffs, impacting dairy products and other items. “If you’re using the tariffs as leverage, if you get an agreement with countries that have come to the table because of that, if you don’t relieve them of tariffs, you’re going to marginalize that as an effective leverage point for other negotiations,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, told reporters at a recent press conference.“The longer this trade war goes on … the greater and more permanent the damage will be,” added Johnson, whose home state saw the dairy-fueled economy lose $139 million through October of last year.