Cai Meng/China Daily

A US Department of Agriculture report on March 14 says national averagewholesale egg prices have been 'steadily declining', but on social networkingsites a number of people in the United States are still complaining about thehigh prices of eggs in supermarkets,

Maybe it takes time for supermarkets, which buy eggs from wholesale markets,to adjust their prices for consumers. Or maybe real-time egg prices vary fromplace to place and it's too early to say that the egg price crisis in the US isover.

Whatever the case, the high egg prices should remind the US government thatno country can alone produce enough to take care of the needs of alinhabitants on Earth. International trade remains an essential, effective way ofbalancing different countries' needs and products. That is like the ABC ofeconomics and there is reason enough to believe the US leaders know it, asthey have asked European countries, including Denmark, to export more eggsto the US. Yes, the same Denmark, from which the US had earlier threatened toannex Greenland.

The US leadership seems ignorant of the fact that imposing tariffs will onlycurb cross-border trade and push up costs, harming its own consumers. lt'srather absurd the US asks countries to export more eggs on one occasion anothreatens to impose more tariffs on the other, as the two measures are, inessence, contradictory.

People of the US know better than their government perhaps. According to UsCustoms and Border Protection data, by mid-March 'significantly more eggproducts' were seized at US borders 'than the number of seizures of thepowerful synthetic opioid fentany!'. Before the US leadership wields the tariffsbaton again, it should listen to the voice of its own people and slash tariffs sothat US citizens can buy affordable eggs without needing to smuggle them intothe country.