Alberta dairy farmers fire back at Trump

For the second time this week, U.S. President Donald Trump has given Canada a verbal lashing over what he says are unfair trade practices that are putting Americans out of work.

Trump said the United States will report in the next two weeks what it intends to do with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he has promised to renegotiate.

The president then broke from a prepared statement to attack Canada's dairy, energy and lumber industries.

"In Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers and others, and we're going to strategy working on that", Mr Trump said in prepared remarks.

He reiterated his belief that the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he has vowed to renegotiate, has been hurting the US economy.

Lawmakers from dairy producing states like Wisconsin and NY, as well as American dairy organisations, have been lobbying the president for months to take on the Canadian dairy industry for practices they say are in violation of trade commitments.

Trump levelled the threats - some of his strongest-ever anti-Canadian rhetoric - during an event at a Wisconsin factory where he unveiled his "Buy American-Hire American" executive order.

U.S. President Donald Trump's harsh words for the Canadian dairy industry are creating concern among Saskatchewan farmers and policy makers.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is anxious about Trump's protectionist talk and has sent his ministers to the U.S.to talk about the importance of Canada's trade relationship with the U.S.

And he did not need more to say that NAFTA was "a complete disaster" for the United States.

About 75 Wisconsin dairy farmers have watched their market dry up.

Trump singled out Canada's dairy supply management system as putting American farmers at a competitive disadvantage.

In February, Trump said the US enjoys a "very outstanding trade relationship with Canada", pledging only "tweaks" to that relationship in larger NAFTA renegotiations.

The Dairy Farmers of Canada, which has previously denounced the complaints as "falsehoods and half-truths", said Tuesday it was confident the federal government would continue to defend the dairy industry.

Canada's dairy sector is protected by high tariffs on imported products and controls on domestic production as a means of supporting prices that farmers receive.

That prompted the Canadian ambassador to the United States, David McNaughton, to respond in a letter to the two governors this week.

While Canada and the US enjoy the world's largest bilateral trading relationship, with roughly $2 billion in goods and services crossing the border each day, disputes do boil over.

The ambassador told reporters in Halifax on Wednesday that earlier written appeals from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to the White House demanding action on the dairy file contained "factual errors" and noted the goal of his strongly-worded response was to "set the record straight".