Canadian Farmers Caught in the Middle of China Canada Tarde Dispute

A partner with Polar Pork says, once again, Canada's farmers are taking the hit for federal trade policies that have nothing to do with agriculture. Last month, in retaliation for Canadian tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles and Chinese steel and aluminum products, China imposed a 100 percent tariff on Canadian canola oil, oil cakes, and pea imports and a 25 percent tariff on Canadian pork and aquatic products.

Florian Possberg, a partner with Polar Pork, says the troubling fact is that the Chinese tariffs being imposed on Canadian agricultural products have nothing to do with Canadian farmers but are in fact all about electric vehicles.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Polar Pork:

We put a tariff on China's electronic vehicles of 100 percent and China, since we don't export any electronic vehicles to China, they decided to hit us in agriculture and it's pretty unfair quite frankly. A 25 percent tariff on Canadian pork going into China and 100 percent on canola meal and oil, that's a huge impact to us producers.We can't compete with Europe and Brazil and other countries that export into China on pork with a 25 percent tariff so that basically excludes us from that market.

China is a huge market for pork. They're the number one producer in the world and they're also the number one consumer and the loss of that market is not good for us. It won't have the same impact as tariffs with the U.S. but it'll certainly still have some impact on us in Canada.

Possberg notes, amid rising global trade tensions fueled by the imposition of U.S. tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent on 75 of its trading partners, the stock market is bleeding badly and there's now talk of a recession coming. For more visit Farmscape.Ca.