Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump saying we don't need Canadian trade.

As Canada stiffens its resolve, Trump has indicated he believes the U.S. doesn't need anything Canada has to offer.

That's not hyperbole. He literally said, quote, we don't need

anything they have. And then specifically mentioned a few industries. Just for context, the U.S.

imports more than $400 billion worth of things we apparently don't need from Canada yearly.

The three industries he named are worth examining, and then we'll talk about the industry he didn't name. We'll start with lumber.

Trump said we didn't need Canadian lumber because the U.S. has, quote, fields of lumber. That must be a technical

term, because I always called them forests. He indicated he could free up those fields of lumber

by executive order. I mean, sure. He could, and in a few years after the ensuing environmental reviews and legal fights over habitats, it would be ready.

But this is a lot like Trump's drill baby drill mantra, not making any sense, because we have production.

We don't have the right kind of refineries.

We have trees in the lumber fields, but we don't have the right kind of refineries. We have trees in the lumber fields, but we don't have mills.

Canada sends us finished lumber, primarily softwood to be specific.

I want to say they have about a quarter of the market.

We need Canadian lumber.

He mentioned milk, which is weird, because we don't actually import a lot of Canadian milk. My guess is his briefing said dairy, and he made

the jump to milk. We import more than 300 million in dairy. About 3.5% is milk. It's cheese. We import lots of cheese. Could

U.S. manufacturers make up for the Canadian imports? That depends on whether or not bird flu is brought under control. The U.S. could probably ramp up production

and keep up with most of the cheese production, but not all. And certainly, not the fancy stuff

made from milk that comes from animals other than cows. He mentioned automotive imports,

kind of suggesting that American car companies could just move their plants to the U.S. I mean, sure, in a few years, once the plants are built.

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