U.S. commerce secretary takes aim at Canada's dairy cartel

Howard Lutnick singled out Canada's supply management policies as a sticking point in ongoing trade negotiations between Canada and the United States, an issue that has plagued other trade deals.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick called on Canada to open its market to American goods during an interview with CBS News this weekend.

“Unless they're willing to open their market, they're going to pay a tariff. That's a simple message that (President Trump) has,” Lutick told Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan. “It's fair trade, it's reciprocal trade. Why should we have our country be wide open while theirs is closed? This is an 80-year wrong that President Trump is trying to fix.”

On Monday's Rebel Roundup livestream, Sheila Gunn Reid and David Menzies said addressing these concerns from Canada's biggestr trading partner are key to getting the country's economy moving.

“We know that supply management in Canada is a political third rail,” David said, noting no party wants to touch the issue, outside of Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada, which holds no seats in the House of Commons.

“Well guess what, we don't have cards to play. If supply management is not going to be eliminated,” he continued, “we're going to have to acquiesce” to President Trump's trade demands.

Unlike Canada's dairy sector, “beef producers are figuring out how to get the other part of the cow to market just fine without government intervention,” Sheila said. Supply management has been a sticking point for other trade deals too, like the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). 

That deal, first agreed to in 2018, still hasn't been fully ratified due to EU countries' opposition to Canada's supply management regulations.

“Supply management is the problem with all these trade deals, and it is the reason why we're getting our butts kicked with tariffs from the Americans,” Sheila said.

“There's a way to dismantle this, other countries have done it, we need to start because other industries are being crushed by it.”

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COMMENTS

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  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2025-07-22 22:20:31 -0400
    Quebec farmers need to form their own cooperative instead of mooching off the government. And if they can’t face the pressure of competition, get into another business. Government props just impoverish us.
  • Robert Pariseau
    commented 2025-07-22 16:21:26 -0400
    Guess who’s not going to be paying the tariff?