U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday that if a deal to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement cannot be reached with Canada and Mexico in about three weeks, its approval by the U.S. Congress could be in jeopardy.
More: Paradigm shift?
President Trump put the U.S. trade team together that actually makes the deals now. And those deals are independent of consideration for the corporate needs of any individual players, or groups of players, on Wall Street.
Ross, Mnuchin and Lighthizer et al, are only looking out for the U.S. best interests. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been cut out completely; and as a direct consequence Wall Street -and by extension their multinational corporations- no longer has any influence on U.S. trade agreements.
This is a massive economic paradigm shift that most people don’t comprehend.
Understand this dynamic and you understand the opposition to Trump.
The thing about NAFTA that I hate the most and want most to see die? Any part of NAFTA that represents Ottawa’s favoritism to Ontario/Quebec industries and D.C.’s favoritism to the corrupt, all powerful and longstanding Corn Lobby. Feck You Iowa!
You have mad American food taste like shit and because of NAFTA you have succeeded making superior Canadian food taste like shit too. Damn corn fiends.
Name a great Canadian bourbon
By definition, there cannot be one.
Quick! Somebody send Freeland to hector the US into making NAFTA more gender inclusive or some such nonsense.
Freeland and Jethro Bodine Trudeau are now an embarrassment to the world
Gee, Trump puts-together his own team and ignores the existing governmental institutions that were put in-place to do that job? – why, that’s un-governmental!
Wonder which recently-former President’s everything-czars and executive fiats he learned that trick from?
Apple is going to bring back offshore $B to the US
Ynott have business leaders the Potus picked as your government team?
We got Socks, freeland, Barbie, Brison, Ralph and Marc-e Marc
Yikes.
Events that coincide.
KM deadline May 31
US midterms campaigning
Alberta election
Ontario election
And now signalling from the US that if an agreement isn’t reached in two weeks it will be problematic.
So what is the great pretender in the PMO doing?
He’s waiting for G. Butts and K. Telford (don’t forget aboot the chick, that’s misogyny) to tell him what to do.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been cut out completely” While this statement may be technically a true statement regarding the negotiations themselves, the U.S. Congress has to ratify it. This is where the US Chamber of Commerce will make its stand.
Funny how if you don’t take contributions for your campaign you are beholden to no one.
I guess then you may as well please the people that voted for you eh!
Sounds good to me.
Yup. Canada will play hardball on Nafta talks. Yup. Canada will walk away from a bad deal. Whether Trump or not the Americans are not stupid, even Obama. They know Canada’s debt situation has the country sitting on a precipice not unlike 2009 when USA homeowners crashed. $2 Trillion in mortgage debt in Canada. That scares the bank of Canada as 47% of that has to be re-written this year. 20% of that debt is with people who owe 350% of earnings.
TransMountain will be built because Canada cannot afford to do otherwise. The eco-nuts and their American funders will be shifted to the side lines. At some point the feds have to grow a pair and look at the stark reality of this countries finances.
“At some point the feds have to grow a pair and look at the stark reality of this countries finances.”
I admire your optimism, especially in the complete absence of evidence at the Federal, Provincial or even Municipal levels…..
Don’t think I don’t agree with you, but the bubble in which these people work is impermeable to facts or evidence, so you and I should be preparing for a 2008 like ride.
Reading a bit of the American explanation of what is some of the biggest road blocks to a renewed NAFTA is the insistence of Canada and Mexico that they protect the China pipeline of manufactured goods to the USA. IOW Canada and Mexico want to continue to act as proxies for China by being a toll free cross dock operation as goods flow tariff free from China to the US. While I don’t know who is benefiting from this arrangement in Canada it obviously isn’t the Canadian worker whose job was out sourced to China decades ago.
It’s American consumers who benefit the most.
And yet, no one is upset about so called public sector unions doing the same thing at every level of government here in Canada.
Want a raise? Vote NDP.
Want a better contract? Go on strike to make the Saskatchewan party look bad.
The fundamental conflict of interest has been OK’ed by the supreme court.
It is not “collective bargaining”, it’s straight up racketeering.
“Nice harvest you had there. It would be a shame if the railroad workers went on strike.”
“Nice town you have here. It would be a shame if all your guns got confiscated because of this flood”.
“Bad snow storm you have here. It would be a shame if all the grader operators went on strike.”
“Nice year you had. It would be a shame if you got audited because of your public opposition to Trudeau.”
“Nice business you have here. It would be a shame if you lost your permit because SEIU don’t like you.”
“Nice job on your tax return. It would be a shame if someone made the tax code so enormous and complex that no one but tax attorneys and accountants could avoid audits.”
“Nice family you have there. It would be a shame if it was a legal requirement to turn your children over for indoctrination.”
Plain and simple truth, the power of the unions must be permanently broken. Government employment needs a paradigm shift. Here is what I propose.
* no more salary for government employment; this ends the era of vote NDP for raises
* government housing, government cafeteria, government uniforms (all basic needs taken care of)
Public service should be more like jury duty or army reserve; you get called up, you do your stint, you go back to normal life. The whole idea of “career civil servant” is a mistake; just like having a public broadcaster. A mistake that causes more damage the longer it goes on.
Every problem in the formerly free world, boils down to get rid of unions.
Why doesn’t this thing understand markdown syntax or HTML? Wiki syntax don’t work either.
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Interesting. I have two questions:
1) Are you ignoring modifications on the elected-government side, e.g. term limits?
2) Without a salary being paid (a concept I do NOT reject out-of-hand), how does one avoid rampant bribery and corruption?
Also, the kabuki theater of government payroll gets to end.
Collect money from actual producers (Peter).
Take some for yourself, give the rest to your boss (Paul).
Pretend that you “pay taxes”, by giving a few of the dollars you took from Peter (but kept some for yourself), “back” to Paul.
Paul gives you a year end bonus (composed entirely of money taken from Peter).
Paul votes an annual raise for himself in Parliament (the building paid for entirely by Peter, but used exclusively by Paul).
Bang on Joe. Canadians should be outraged that our politicians and crony capitalists have been using Canada as a proxy into the US market for Chinese goods.
Team Canada should have sided with the US and joined them in getting a trilateral deal with China and with Japan (there are 100’s of billions $$ in intergration between US government and corporations in Canada, but for the US there are Trillions $$ at stake).
Team Canada believed their own propaganda. That Trump wouldn’t be around long enough, that he is dumb, he will be impeached, congress won’t back him, the US chamber of congress and massive lobby weight of them and the unions, don’t forget the unions!!, would sink him, just like it did EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT!
POTUS sends Wilbur Ross and Bob Lightenhizer. He doesn’t even show up to any of the meetings, tweets his position like a general would, causes Team Canada to be on the defensive, forces them to justify their positions, holds the hammmer seeing every problem looking like a nail.
Team Canada realizes, regrettably, about 6 months ago that POTUS is aware of the Canadian proxy market for China. Team Canada backs out of signing TPP, see Andrew Coyne Nov 13,2017 http://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-why-did-trudeau-miss-the-tpp-meeting-none-of-the-reasons-seem-creditable
AC picks up the scent but doesn’t get the jaw lock on the throat of his prey. To wit “One suggestion is that it has something to do with China. The TPP was always one part trade deal, one part geopolitics, being designed as a counterweight to Chinese influence in the region. But the Trudeau government, it is abundantly clear, is embarked upon a strategy of cozying up to China, which it sees as the rising world power. Witness its seeming indifference to security concerns with regard to what remains a hostile power (see, for example, the Norsat satellite deal), its downplaying of human rights abuses (see its refusal to rule out a possible extradition treaty), above all its consuming eagerness for a bilateral free trade deal. Whether Canada should be tilting to China is debatable, but subordinating our broader trade and strategic interests to it would be inexcusable.
Too cute by half AC.
Around February of this year, the General positions Peter Navarro (Death By China author) onto the Nafta Chinese proxy flank. Google Peter Navarro and see the articles and videos of and about him and the dates are first week of March (publicity blitz). Up until then I would wager very few Americans and even fewer Canadians knew who this guy was. He’s the tariff guy, hitting Canada and Mexico with tariffs to prevent Chinese steel and aluminum from being dumped into US market by the Canadian and Mexican Chinese business proxies. Outflanked, outgunned, outmaneuvered. Check. Mate.
“Canadians should be outraged that our politicians and crony capitalists have been using Canada as a proxy into the US market for Chinese goods.”
….why? Why in the world would free trade outrage me?
“approval by congress may be in jeopardy”
Since NAFTA was originally passed by congress, the president cannot overturn it. So the above statement is at least misleading.
“Ross, Mnuchin and Lighthizer et al, are only looking out for the U.S. best interests. ”
Bzzt. The US best interests = unilateral free trade. The Three Doofs are looking out for mercantilism.
It could well be a paradigm shift. Smoot Hawley certainly was.