Milking scapegoats: Biden administration bows to demands to reopen hyped up attacks on Canadian dairy, lumber

Democrats have not been much better at defying pressure from the 12,000-strong K Street lobbying army. And the single-interest tail may be still wagging the national-interest dog when it comes to Biden's administration.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is former president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, the lobby group whose demands for action in retaliation for Canada’s allegedly unfair dairy practices put the tariff-rate quotas issue on the government agenda in Washington, writes Les Whittington. Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Opinion

BY LES WHITTINGTON

June 2, 2021

OTTAWA—One of the reasons Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency in 2016 was his promise to “drain the swamp”—that is, reduce the immense power of influence-peddlers and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., whose efforts to promote the agendas of their single-interest patrons were seen to be consist...

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