After dairy and metals, U.S. trade hawks setting sights on foreign berries, produce

WASHINGTON, D.C.

After waging war on Canadian dairy, steel and aluminum, Donald Trump’s White House appears to be taking aim at new foreign trade invaders: blueberries and raspberries.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer served notice last week that the Trump administration fears domestic producers are being unfairly harmed by what they call a recent increase in berry imports from Canada and Mexico.

Lighthizer asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate whether domestic farmers, who are feeling the pinch from the COVID-19 pandemic, are being hurt by an increase in foreign competition.

“President Trump recognizes the challenges faced by farmers across the country,” Lighthizer said in a recent statement.

Ordering a USITC investigation, which Lighthizer also did on raspberry imports earlier this year, “is just one of a number of steps the administration is taking to support American producers of seasonal and perishable agricultural products.”

Blueberry imports from Mexico appear to be the primary concern. But Canadian producers know all too well that they stand to be side-swiped.

The B.C. Blueberry Council was obliged to retain legal counsel as a result of the USITC investigation, said executive director Anju Gill, who nonetheless is holding out hope that common sense will prevail.

Canada is the world’s single largest importer of fresh American blueberries by a wide margin, said Gill, but remains far from the single largest supplier to the U.S., well back of Chile and Mexico.

Even so, 98 per cent of Canada’s exports go to the United States.

“It’s been a very close working relationship between the U.S. and Canada,” she said.

“In that sense, we would like to continue with that type of working relationship and trade. But we’ll see what happens with this.”

Members of Congress from Maine, which is home to the bulk of the country’s wild-blueberry industry, went to bat last month for their Canadian counterparts to pre-empt a fresh batch of U.S. tariffs.

Maine’s blueberry processing industry depends on bulk imports from Canada, the group wrote in a Sept. 17 letter to Lighthizer.

“We urge you to consider the importance of Canadian wild blueberry imports to the viability of Maine’s blueberry industry,” reads the letter.