There is an old Israeli song that starts out “Tea and Rice are in China, But I don’t care about that”. What I do care about is butter. Locally made butter just reappeared on supermarket shelves after an absence of almost a year. Why? Because Israels government allowed Chinese interests to buy a controlling share in the TNUVA dairy cooperative a while ago. TNUVA produces most of the butter in Israel. According to what I was told, China stopped importing butter from the US as part of their ongoing trade dispute and was forced to look elsewhere. They decided that Israeli butter should go to China. Israel, in turn, had to get butter from Europe. Who lost? Well, the Israeli consumer was certainly among the losers. Israeli made dairy products rank with the best in the world. Messing around with international trade deals that don’t provide protection for local consumers is only one of the hallmarks of the Israeli Likud government led by Benyamin Netanyahu. Israel is just a tiny country. It seems it can be dangerous to get involved in fights between the two biggest economic powers in the world today.
Wetherhorn 