Canadian cows are advised to keep one big, brown eye out for incoming Tomahawk missiles.
Throwing $80 million worth of missiles at Syria didn’t make Assad change his plans. Sending an aircraft carrier sailing away from North Korea wasn’t enough to make Kim Jong-un give up the bomb. And now Trump’s Mexican wall has collapsed before being built.
Someone has to pay, and that someone is … Canadians.
That’s right. Just try making your poutine without curds, canucks. Donald Trump will no longer stand for your wily … milk.
Yes, there is a policy issue behind Trump’s “Hold my beer glass of milk” threat. But, as with most such items, it’s not exactly a black and white issue.
But Trump's slam of the Canadian dairy system is characterized by many in the state as misguided, because the real issue is broad overproduction.
Shane Sauer says his 120-head farm east of Madison and other such small operations have long been led to believe the market for milk was near endless.
As in many other states, regulations have been changed over the years to favor huge “factory farms.” That’s upping overall production, reducing milk prices, and squeezing out smaller operations.
Sarah Lloyd and Nels Nelson, who tend 350 dairy cows on a 400-hectare property northwest of Madison, say their view is that Trump's got it all wrong.
Blaming Canada for restricting market access to ultra-filtered milk is missing the real issue facing Wisconsin farmers, they said.
"Suddenly, everyone was pointing the finger at Canada, but that's not really what's going on. We have overproduction here in Wisconsin, and we really need to address that here at home," said Lloyd.
Canada recently changed rules that make it harder for American farmers producing “ultrafiltered” milk to sell into the Canadian market. It’s not a huge change, but with a market that was already … over-saturated, the result is a swift kick to some of those smaller operations.
But blaming Canada is much more fun. Beside, Donald Trump saw it on television, so it must be true.