“Canada charges 250 to 300 percent tariff on our milk.”

Rose Garden 'Liberation Day' announcement and subsequent remarks

No American dairy exporter actually pays those tariffs. U.S. dairy enters Canada tarifffree up to generous quotas, and U.S. exports have never come close to exceeding them. The 250300% rates exist only as over-quota penalties. In 2024 the U.S. exported more than $1.1 billion in dairy to Canada (up nearly 55% since 2020) and none of it faced triple-digit tariffs. Trump himself signed the agreement that set these quotas: the USMCA, which his first administration negotiated and he signed into law in 2020. FactCheck.org found the over-quota rates in effect in January 2025 were virtually identical to those in Trump's last year in office. The U.S. dairy industry's own lobby, the International Dairy Foods Association, said in March 2025 that 'the U.S. has never gotten close to exceeding our USMCA quotas.' Per IDFA calculations, U.S. exporters filled on average only about 21-27% of the Canadian quotas, meaning the headline tariff rates Trump cites are never triggered. "In practice, these tariffs are not actually paid by anyone." — Al Mussell, research lead, Agri-Food Economic Systems, to CNN (March 2025)