American onion growers say they cannot compete with the price of onions imported from Canada — and they want the U.S. government to find out why they are so cheap.

Shay Myers, who grows onions in Oregon and Idaho, said his profits dropped by 25 percent in 2019 as prices fell and he lost customers to Canada.

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The World Trade Organization prohibits countries from directly subsidizing exports, said Alan Sykes, a law professor at Stanford Law School.

Countries are allowed to broadly subsidize their agricultural industries as a whole. But if those subsidies harm an importing country’s domestic producers, the affected country can impose import duties to level the playing field, Sykes said.