Trump's new threat, after lumber tax, on Canadian dairy: 'Watch!'

President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that the United States "will not stand for" Canadian dairy trade policies that hurt American dairy farm exports, adding that the rules have "made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very hard".

The old U.S. -Canadian softwood lumber agreement worked well until it expired in 2015, resulting in no limits on the amount of lumber that could be imported from Canada, said Wayne Brandt, executive director of the Duluth-based Minnesota Timber Producers Association.

On Twitter, Breitbart News White House correspondent Charlie Spiering quoted Trump as saying, "We're going to be putting a 20% tax on softwood lumber coming in - tariff on softwood coming into the United States from Canada".

An even bigger risk for Canada is a border tax against Canadian products, a development that would prompt Canada to "consider certain measures", according to Transport Minister Marc Garneau, chair of a powerful cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations.

The U.S. and Canada typically enjoy a friendly trading relationship, but things have soured in recent months as the two countries and Mexico prepare to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yet once in office, he softened his stand, deciding not to single out China for its currency policy and offering a draft rewrite of NAFTA that kept much of the original deal intact. "And we're not going to put up with it", Trump said during a round table Tuesday with farmers Trump.

"How I read this is markets were discounting a very benign scenario, and this is a wake-up call" said Andres Jaime, global foreign exchange and rates strategist at Barclays, adding the peso was being hit by the news about Canada.

My priority is the people of Ontario, and I will stand up for them every time.

In a way, the tensions are surprising. Canada sold $278 billion in goods to the United States, led by fuels, autos and machinery.

Officials in Canada, the second most important U.S. trading partner, rejected claims of subsidies.

That's what he wrote the morning after his government announced initial duties up to 24 per cent on Canadian lumber, with more expected later this year. And any challenge likely won't come before January at the earliest, since final US determinations on softwood won't be in place until November or December. As a builder, they perhaps reasoned, Trump might be more sympathetic to anything that would limit the price of lumber.

"On the issue of softwood lumber, the prime minister refuted the baseless allegations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties", the statement said. "But they still have to play by the rules".

The U.S. has also signalled that anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood exports could be added in June 2017 to compound today's countervailing duties.

The dairy industry is a club of about 12,000 dairy farms that wield huge power in Canadian politics.

The mill employs about 100 people on two shifts a day and remanufactures cedar products such as shakes and siding and ships about 80 per cent of it south of the border.

News of the tariffs sent the USA dollar surging Tuesday to its highest level against its Canadian counterpart in more than a year, according to the Reuters news agency.

The President echoed that sentiment Thursday: "We can't let Canada or anyone else take advantage of our workers or our farmers".

"These initiatives are available to businesses of all sizes and can assist companies looking to make capital investments, expand market opportunities and diversify into new markets with confidence".

He says the industry is concerned about job losses and says other markets, such as Asia, won't make up for the loss of the US market.

After his election, she said it wasn't helpful to criticize him for his sexist comments.

"It's hard to exaggerate the impact tariffs will have on hundreds of small communities". Having a good constructive working relationship allows us to work through those irritants.