Tariffs hit home

The paper that this newspaper is printed on comes from Canada. For many  years, American printing companies and newspapers have imported Canadian newsprint because there are not enough American mills to produce the newsprint to satisfy the market. Enter one lone paper mill, the North Pacific Paper Company, now owned by the New York hedge fund group One Rock Capital Partners, who alleges that Canadian producers violate trade laws by receiving government subsidies and engage in dumping tactics. The Dept. of Commerce and the International Trade Commission are investigating the allegations. In the meantime, the Trump administration has levied a steep tariff of 22 percent on those paper imports from Canada. The additional expense is passed on to the newspapers, many of them small community papers that are struggeling to stay alive.
 Isn’t that a convenient way to dispose of the pesky, independent press?— D.H.—