Another way President Trump is “dictating” Canadian Footsteps

Donald Trump is looking to add on more tariffs in order to “protect American jobs” and discourage imports. One of his steps to making America “great again”.

And what are Canadians doing you might ask? Well, they are moving in the opposite direction; they are removing tariffs completely in order to protect Canadian jobs.

This has become a game of cat and mouse.

To be more specific, about 200 different tariffs on imported food ingredients have been amended. Canada collects an average of $48M in tariffs on said ingredients.

The government is in essence giving this money back to the food companies.

This step has gladdened hearts of the likes of Campbell’s, Kellogg’s and Kraft who are all represented by the Food & Consumer Products of Canada. The FCPC is the largest industry group. It has been lobbying for this for years!

“This is a really positive step,” said Carla Ventin, the association’s vice-president of federal government affairs.

This not first time the government is cutting tariffs; in the 2009 and 2010 budgets, the previous Conservative government cut tariffs on imported machinery and equipment. And now, the Liberal government has included agri-food to the list. The agri-food list includes fruits & veggies, grains & cereals, fats & oils, spices, chocolate products and food preparations but nothing from dairy, egg and poultry.

How does this new step affect Canada’s standing in the international world

According to Dominic Barton, the chair for Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s economic advisory panel, the country’s agri-food industry has growth potential as the demand for food grows, internationally.

As much as the removal of the tariffs is good, the Canadian Horticultural Council, representer of domestic growers is saying that it was made aware of the tariff list. The problem here is that the tariff list also includes food grown domestically.

International suppliers are just a backup plan just in case crops grown at home fail.

“At the moment, we can’t say with certainty how much of an impact the regulation will have on our members,” said a statement from its president, Keith Kuhl.

On the other hand, food processors don’t agree with the Council; they do not see any risk to domestic growers.

A lot of Canadian manufacturers buy locally whenever they can due to the country’s food safety and environmental standards and transport costs.

Food manufacturing employs about 300,000 Canadians in large, urban and small enterprises