How Trump's trade war is hurting America's cheesemakers

Working in big cheese is really starting to stink.

American cheese exports are down drastically this year, largely thanks to Mexico and China issuing dairy tariffs in response to President Trump's trade war. Now, there's a 1.4 billion pound pileup in cold storage facilities across the country as cheddar prices continue to tank, The Wall Street Journal reports.

U.S. cheesemakers are currently sitting on the largest stockpile in recorded history. But it's not because Americans aren't tolerating the lactose, seeing as they "ate a record 37 pounds of natural cheese per capita last year," the Journal says. It's because cheesemakers increased production to meet that higher demand, only to see it sliced amid Trump's trade war. Mexico's intake of American cheese went down by more than 10 percent in the past year after issuing tariffs on cheese and whey, while China's imports fell by 63 percent, per the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

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Americans are also largely rejecting traditional American slices in favor of foreign varieties like Gouda and Havarti. Mexican and Chinese buyers would've typically gobbled up the processed slices, but in the face of the trade conflict, that cheese is simply aging away in cold storage. Cheddar prices are down 24 percent this year from 2014 prices, leading producers to worry tariffs "could eat into profits," the Journal writes. Milk prices are also down 40 percent from 2014, and more than 600 dairy farms in Wisconsin have closed this year.

Read more about the cheese crisis at The Wall Street Journal, or answer this poll/trivia question from the Department of Agriculture, who clearly didn't read the cheese-filled room when tweeting. Kathryn Krawczyk

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.