sly_karma
Crew Member
Lots of posts here about dairy. I think our Canadian negotiators cleverly exploited Trump's grandstanding about 'unfair Canadian dairy protection' and used it against him. He made it into a huge deal in the media even though it represents only 0.6% of the trade volume between our countries. My sense was dairy was always going to be an area where concessions could be made without serious loss of economic or political capital in Canada. Negotiators held out on dairy to the eleventh hour to keep up the pretense it was a big thing to us as well, and leveraged it very nicely for gains in the auto sector of far greater dollar value - and zero ground given on dispute resolution.
The real balance in a deal this complex takes years to be revealed. 25 years of NAFTA showed Canada negotiated very well in those talks. Typically when all parties keep complaining about getting the short end of the stick, you know you probably have a pretty even handed deal.
Finally, steel and aluminum. They need to get there by more civil methods, but there's some sense to Trump's insistence that this is a national security issue/ Those are strategic metals and no country with a military like theirs should ever become dependent on import of strategic materials. Look how close the UK came to losing WW2 because most of its resources had to come from across oceans. Left to its own devices, the economy seeks the most competitive sources for all materials, but there's a case for government intervention when strategic materials are involved. If the future ex president could express himself at a level higher than grade four English via tweets and his perpetual election rally events, he'd tell us something similar to what I just did. Canada shouldn't take umbrage at being seen as a national security threat, obviously we're not. But keeping a substantial portion of steel and aluminum production in domestic sources makes sense for the americans.
The real balance in a deal this complex takes years to be revealed. 25 years of NAFTA showed Canada negotiated very well in those talks. Typically when all parties keep complaining about getting the short end of the stick, you know you probably have a pretty even handed deal.
Finally, steel and aluminum. They need to get there by more civil methods, but there's some sense to Trump's insistence that this is a national security issue/ Those are strategic metals and no country with a military like theirs should ever become dependent on import of strategic materials. Look how close the UK came to losing WW2 because most of its resources had to come from across oceans. Left to its own devices, the economy seeks the most competitive sources for all materials, but there's a case for government intervention when strategic materials are involved. If the future ex president could express himself at a level higher than grade four English via tweets and his perpetual election rally events, he'd tell us something similar to what I just did. Canada shouldn't take umbrage at being seen as a national security threat, obviously we're not. But keeping a substantial portion of steel and aluminum production in domestic sources makes sense for the americans.
