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Sources say Obama emphasized it there — and again during his final visit to Ottawa. Once again it was done quietly, easily drowned out by the boisterous reception bestowed upon the president by Canadian parliamentarians.

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“The Trump White House is indistinguishable from the Obama White House on dairy,” said one Canadian official.

“(Obama) spent a lot of time on it in D.C. and again in Ottawa. . . . They are (now) very much taking the Obama line.”

Obama’s former ambassador to Canada recalls those conversations.

In an interview, Bruce Heyman explained the powerful U.S. domestic politics of this issue. It so happens the top lawmakers from each party come from a dairy-producing state: New York’s Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, and Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, the Republican House Speaker.

Schumer urged Heyman to press the matter.

“This is not something new,” Heyman said. “And it’s not one party. It is not a Republican party, or a Democratic party, issue. It is an issue that is longstanding.”

It was no accident Trump went after the northern neighbour when he was in Wisconsin — home to Ryan, and Gov. Scott Walker, who co-authored a letter on dairy to the president with his Democratic peer from New York.

“In Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers,” Trump said. “It’s another typical one-sided deal against the United States and it’s not going to be happening for long. . . . We’re going to call Canada and we’re going to say, ’What happened?’ . . . We’re going to get the solution, not just the answer.”