OPINION
Editor’s note: After this piece was printed, the White House announced on Wednesday (April 2) that newsprint, the paper used for printing newspapers, will be exempt from both the 25% tariffs President Trump imposed on goods from Canada and Mexico, and the additional 10% baseline tariff he announced. The White House said all goods that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will continue to be exempt, such as newsprint.
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Dear President Trump: Your 25% tariff on Canadian imports is due to begin on Wednesday. I’d like you to stop or delay the tariff on Canadian newsprint, the paper used for printing newspapers. This tariff will have a devastating impact on the budget of my newspaper and thousands of other community newspapers across the United States.
Community newspapers like ours are vital to readers who want to stay informed and to small businesses who rely on newspapers for advertising. They depend on us to get their advertising message out to customers. And, dollar-for-dollar, we’re a more cost efficient advertising medium than anything online, including Google and Facebook. Businesses often turn to us for advertising when their online campaigns fail.
Canada takes advantage
I agree with you that Canada has been taking advantage of American paper producers with unfair subsidies to Canadian mills. Those subsidies have allowed the Canadians to sell paper products, including newsprint, at prices far below what American mills can charge. This has driven many American paper mills out of business.
Many years ago, Canada was a minor player in the paper-producing business. But today 80% of the newsprint used by U.S. newspapers comes from Canada. That’s because they can sell paper at lower prices thanks to their subsidies.
If the playing field were even, you’d see more U.S. mills getting into the business of producing newsprint, resulting in market prices.
Too sudden a move
But imposing a 25% tariff on Wednesday is too sudden a move — American mills will not be able to ramp up production to meet demand, forcing newspapers to buy paper from Canada at prices 25% higher than today. The cost increase will equal what we pay a reporter. Multiply that by 6,000 community newspapers across the U.S., and you can see the effect your tariff will have.
Many newspapers won’t be able to absorb this cost increase. Profit margins in the news business are thin already. After payroll, the largest expense of a community newspaper is newsprint.
Please stop or delay these proposed tariffs on newsprint. Think of all the communities in the United States that will be left without a community newspaper if this price increase occurs.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
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Well, if print editions go away – news will all be on the internet & guess who will control the content ??
Trump isn’t going to care if newspapers are hurt by his actions. He hates the free press.
Please please please let is subscribe to full online edition and/or to pay for hard-copy delivery.
Your coverage is SO critical.
Well, this is the kind of tit-for-tat thing that “trade deals” like USMCA are supposed to sort out — maybe the Canadians subsidize newsprint or maybe not, but it’s not like we don’t subsidize all kinds of things here too: corn, soybeans, dairy, cotton, oil and gas exploration, famously Boeing development via juicy spillover military contracts, yada yada. And that’s just subsidies, never mind raw protection (let Americans buy prescription drugs from Canada, anybody?). So we haggle a deal. But Trump doesn’t even respect his own deals, as we learned from his previous careers.
Can you explain the 200-300% tariff Canada imposes on US dairy products like milk and cheese?
You mean, these 200-300% tariffs?
[Portion removed — Terms of Use violation. Do not post links.]
“To support his plan to increase tariffs, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the Canadian government charges U.S. farmers a 250% or 270% tariff on dairy products exported to Canada. That’s misleading. There are rates that high on the books, but they would only be charged if U.S. exports exceed predetermined tariff rate quotas, which the dairy exports don’t come close to meeting … Below these quotas, American dairy sales to Canada face zero tariffs … U.S. dairy has never faced triple-digit tariffs.”
A deal structure and thresholds which Mr Art-of-the-Deal himself negotiated, as it happens.
Damn, hate those fact-check sites. The guy has six bankruptcies. What I can’t figure out is, who would ever give him money after #2, never mind #4 or 5? You would really have to believe absolutely everything the guy says, which we all know by now is the exact opposite of reality. Such as …
The 250% surplus on dairy is correct, but it is only triggered when the amount of U.S. exports surpasses a limit established in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade agreement.
Becky Rasdall Vargas, senior vice president of the International Dairy Foods Association, said in a March 7, 2025 statement: “It is accurate that Canada imposes a tariff of approximately 250% on U.S. exports of certain dairy products into Canada, and even more with Canada’s 25% retaliatory tariffs in place. However, that tariff would only apply if we were able to reach and exceed the quota on U.S. dairy exports agreed to under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Frustratingly, the U.S. has never gotten close to exceeding our USMCA quotas because Canada has erected various protectionist measures that fly in the face of their trade obligations made under USMCA.”
The organization, representing dairy farmers in many countries, said it is happy that Trump is holding Canada accountable for their protectionist behavior that has been ripping off American agricultural producers for decades. Canada hasn’t been our friend.
Sigh.
Well, at least we’re in the Golden Age now. So great that prices came down on Day 1, the wars are over, and it’s “TIME TO GET RICH!”
Fact-checking sites? That’s so 2016. Liberals put up fact-checking facts in response to the election of President Trump in 2016, who constantly labeled reports in the legacy media as “fake news.” Fact checkers wanted to make people think Trump was wrong and the legacy media was right. Fact-check sites always lean left and are supported by some progressive billionaire who wants a website to support liberal myths and misinformation. Many of these sites have been exposed for their bias and attempt to hide their backers. Today, nobody relies upon them, except maybe a Canadian bot.
Remember the scandal involving Snopes, a fact checking site. The CEO was caught plagiarizing from dozens of articles, and would put fake bylines on his stolen articles. Fact checking sites are a scam.
Dave,
Being almost 1000 miles away after being a 5th generation Californian who couldn’t take it anymore, I find that you are always a breath of fresh air in a place that was once the greatest place on the planet.
Sell a full digital plan for the Post and I will sign-up in a heartbeat. I bet there are thousands who would do the same.
Dave, you’re taking a short-sighted and dim view of the tariff issue. I don’t like tariffs (taxes) either, nobody should as they raise costs on both businesses and prices on consumers. That said, something interesting is beginning to happen. The political leaders of foreign countries are starting to reduce their tariffs on American products in hopes of persuading Trump to reciprocate or they are meeting with Trump to negotiate a free trade agreement. The Art of the Deal.
Glad to see the Daily Post dodged this bullet. And Alvin, you should read the column again. Dave didn’t really give any opinion about the tariffs, he just said that the newspaper industry would need more time to let printing mills in the U.S. fill the void.
Comments are closed.
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Opinion: Trump’s tariffs will hurt local newspapers (with update) – Palo Alto Daily Post
