alt Hacker NewsThe main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.
That's why the USA has never reached the tarriff limit. The big producers there would just dump 20 million litres at once if they could. They aren't interested in 1 or two.
And if they were able to do that, the Canadian producers would go under. So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.
The entire Canadian dairy industry produces less milk than Wisconsin alone. Why does the US need the Canadian market? A: They don't, they just want it anyways.
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>So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.
Flooded? Cheap? Yes. Low quality? Doubtful. If quality were the sticking point, you'd expect this would be amicably resolved with equal standards for both domestic and imported milk.
The broader context is that approximately any country that wants a healthy, stable dairy industry (often regarded as a component of national security) has to provide government support to their farmers one way or another. “Stable” is particularly important for dairy because recovery when lots of dairy cattle are culled is expensive and takes years.
The US and Canada use different, incompatible means for accomplishing this, so you can arbitrarily paint either as “cheating” the other by saying “well (Canada/The US) does X to the tune of (a dollar amount) and the other does zero of that, they’re cheating!”, i.e. by lying by omission.
Because of the way the US subsidizes theirs, Canada could be vulnerable to dumping. So there are protections in place. This is not remotely a big deal so long as both sides are competent and operating on something resembling good faith…
The US has the same on dairy imports into the US for the same reason.
It follows then that the USA also wants to protect its industries, such as timber, oil and gas, and maple syrup, from Canadian producers that are happy to dump their stuff south of the border for cheaper than US competition.
The main reason for the dairy supply quota is to protect a politically powerful cartel, everything else is justification
> The main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.
Yet the same rules apply to European cheese: limited quantities that can only be imported through an established dairy cartel member. Anti-Americanism is a convenient marketing tool, along with the nostalgic myth of the independent family farm. The reality is oligarchs like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saputo_Inc.
Maybe it's obvious, but you left out subsidized. US dairy production is extremely subsidized compared to Canada's. It's not in any sense "free trade". The subsidies would allow the US dairy industry to destroy Canada's (it might even without the subsidies, but the subsidies guarantee it). Once the local industry was destroyed, the US producers/government would be free to increase the price. No country wants that, which is why things like staple foods are subsidized and tariff-protected anywhere in the world where not doing so would give a large neighbor/bloc leverage over them.