“The little potato got mashed,” said Gerry Ritz.

I’m speaking to the man that was Canada’s agriculture minister for almost a decade about China’s latest moves against Canada’s top exports to the second largest economy in the world.

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Ritz knows all about how difficult China can be, how they mix trade and politics like few other countries and how they don’t always play fair. In our past conversations, Ritz has been willing to cut Trudeau and his Liberal government some slack on dealings with China, not now.

Now says Ritz, the man the Chinese nicknamed, “little potato” is getting run over by China.

“Trudeau is going to have to do one of his famous flights and get over there,” Ritz said.

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So far there hasn’t been a top level delegation to travel to China, we haven’t even appointed an ambassador to replace John McCallum after he was fired.

China is hitting Canada hard economically and the Trudeau government is nothing more than asking for the beatings to stop.

Although they aren’t even being very forceful with that request.

After spending the last few months punishing Canada’s canola producers, China is now building a list of other companies that they could punish.

That from Canada’s former ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques.

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oing transactions with Canadian companies,” Saint-Jacques told CBC the other day.

That prediction came true as the basic dictatorship in Beijing announced that two pork producers in Canada are now banned from sending products to China.

Drummond Export of Quebec has been selling into China for more than 20 years without problems; suddenly they are being suspended over “labelling” concerns. A plant in Red Deer, Alta., from Quebec-based Olymel is also suspended and more are likely to follow.

Peas and soybeans could be next, some sources say that genetics for beef, dairy and pork are already being targeted in a less formal way.

“It’s just a comedy of errors that is turning into an economic disaster,” said Ritz.

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Ritz says the Trudeau Liberals are playing into China’s hand by going along with the idea that the labeling of pork or a scientific disagreement on canola is the real reason behind these spats.

“These are political contests, it is not scientific,” Ritz said.

So after canola, soybean, pea and pork producers who will be next and what will our federal government do?

Based on the list of top exports from Canada to China, we could expect wood or paper products to be next, maybe ores, slag and ash — industrial products that China needs.

We could actually cut off something like coal exports but that is unlikely.

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Yes, it would make China sit up and take notice but would also hurt our workers.

So far, the Trudeau government has yet to look at retaliatory measures; they haven’t even filed an official trade complaint with the World Trade Organization.

The reality is this fight with China is their attempt to punish Canada over the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. At one point, Trudeau was able to say he couldn’t intervene because Canada’s justice system was based on the rule of law and not political considerations.

Then the SNC-Lavalin scandal hit and Chinese authorities have noticed that Trudeau will bend the rule of law for favoured companies.

Now they are applying pressure to see how long it takes for Canada, under Trudeau, to break.

Our farmers, our producers, are hurting due to Trudeau’s bad decisions.

There is no other way to look at this.