Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 6/12/18

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue stepped in as the calm voice of reason on trade with Canada on Monday — after a weekend when White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested there was a "special place in hell" waiting for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and President Donald Trump blasted Trudeau for saying Canada would stand up to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs.

Perdue is heading to Canada on Friday, and he made it clear he's happy to work with Canadian Minister of Agriculture Lawrence MacAulay. In a tweet Monday morning, Perdue celebrated his upcoming trip by posting a photo with MacAulay's arm wrapped over his shoulder, saying he was "looking forward to visiting my friend & Canadian counterpart @L_MacAulay at Prince Edward Island later this week." MacAulay replied in similarly warm fashion with a photo of the two smiling and shaking hands, saying he is "proud to be welcoming my friend" to discuss ways to cooperate in the agriculture sector.

Kudlow suffers heart attack: Amid the rising tensions, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow suffered a heart attack. Kudlow, who traveled to Canada for the G-7 over the weekend, had spent the past few days defending Trump's stance on Canada. He was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that the heart attack was "very mild" and that Kudlow is "doing well." POLITICO's Nancy Cook reports that Kudlow, 70, has been working furiously behind the scenes to hammer out a trade deal with China and save NAFTA from collapsing.

Congress blows the whistle: The White House attacks on Canada are making Senate Republicans angry, POLITICO's Burgess Everett reports. Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Monday that Navarro "should have kept his big mouth shut because I don't think that helps us in foreign policy. And frankly I think that's out of line."

Agriculture, of course, will remain a sticking point in NAFTA talks, with many big issues far from resolved. Pro Trade's Doug Palmer reported that while Trump won't withdraw from NAFTA, it's unclear whether he can reach a new deal.

What the numbers really show: While President Trump repeatedly referred to farmers over the weekend as some of the biggest victims of international trade, a study released Friday by three professors from the University of Illinois' Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics presents a far less dire portrait. "Agriculture exports especially to Canada, Mexico and China have grown dramatically over the past 15 years," Kathy Bayliss, one of the study's authors, told POLITICO. "For the most part, trade barriers have dropped quite dramatically over the past 15 years because of trade agreements. That's how you've gotten reductions in trade barriers is through trade agreements, not retaliatory tariffs."

Farmers pushing back on Trump: Doug reports that agriculture groups like the American Soybean Association are making a last ditch effort to convince Trump not to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, fearing that could prompt China to retaliate on an equal amount of exports including agricultural goods. The U.S. Trade Representative is expected to publish a final list of Chinese goods that Trump intends to hit with a new 25 percent tariff by Friday.