NAFTA negotiations.

[Wilber]

On 8/30/2018 at 11:03 PM, paxamericana said:

I'll wear that as a badge of honor

Ignorance is a badge of honor. Should go on the hat underneath MAGA.

[bush_cheney2004]

11 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

You’re basically an apologist for some of America’s worst elements. 

 

I never apologize for America...it is what it has always been...good and bad.   

The monopoly for smugness and incessant apologies can be found in Canada.

[bush_cheney2004]

President is just having some Labour Day weekend fun now, since the NAFTA talks are put off to next week.

Trump will continue to tighten the screws on Trudeau, now that he and Freeland have fumbled so badly for so long.

I think Trump is trying to goad Trudeau into rearing up on his skinny hind legs and leave NAFTA...Trump will keep bating Trudeau as only Trump can.

If Canada leaves NAFTA...Trump wins.

If Canada stays in NAFTA....Trump wins.

That would be a win-win-win...with Mexico already throwing Canada under the bus.

[Zeitgeist]

9 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

President is just having some Labour Day weekend fun now, since the NAFTA talks are put off to next week.

Trump will continue to tighten the screws on Trudeau, now that he and Freeland have fumbled so badly for so long.

I think Trump is trying to goad Trudeau into rearing up on his skinny hind legs and leave NAFTA...Trump will keep bating Trudeau as only Trump can.

If Canada leaves NAFTA...Trump wins.

If Canada stays in NAFTA....Trump wins.

That would be a win-win-win...with Mexico already throwing Canada under the bus.

Trump and his policies are losers.  So classy to golf during McCain’s funeral.  Trump in all his ugly splendour. 

Edited September 1, 2018 by Zeitgeist

[Zeitgeist]

2 hours ago, paxamericana said:

Goodluck with your economy then

As though you or even Trump could ever have such impact.  Delusions of grandeur. 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

Trump and his policies are losers.  So classy to golf during McCain’s funeral.  Trump in all his ugly splendour. 

 

So the approval of the Keystone XL bitumen pipeline is a loser ?    Funny, 'cause Canada begged him to do it.

[Centerpiece]

Classic good guy/bad guy negotiation. Trump's the bad guy - his team led by Lighthizer are the good guys. The team is negotiating in good faith but can always play the Trump card if necessary. I doubt they have actually done that yet - but Trump's belligerence creates a background drone that speaks to "I can't take that back to the President". It's really mostly about Dairy because that's just about the only thing that Trump has been going on about. Is that really too much to ask? Substantially increase the quotas and reduce the incremental tariff and the rest of the dominos will fall in place.

[Wilber]

If the existing quota is already supplying the market, what good would increasing it do? The American’s problem is their system always winds up producing way too much for the market. Canada can’t fix that for them even if we give them our whole market. Wisconsin alone has more dairy cattle than all of Canada.

 

Fuck Trump, why should we sacrifice a whole industry just to satisfy that asshole’s ego.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Wilber

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

Classic good guy/bad guy negotiation. Trump's the bad guy - his team led by Lighthizer are the good guys. The team is negotiating in good faith but can always play the Trump card if necessary. I doubt they have actually done that yet - but Trump's belligerence creates a background drone that speaks to "I can't take that back to the President". It's really mostly about Dairy because that's just about the only thing that Trump has been going on about. Is that really too much to ask? Substantially increase the quotas and reduce the incremental tariff and the rest of the dominos will fall in place.

 

Agreed...it never should have gotten this far.   

Trudeau should have relented on dairy early on just as he did for CETA/CPTPP, instead of holding out for domestic political purposes.

 

[Centerpiece]

Where was the MSM on this CBC report - even the CBC tried to downplay their own reporter by focusing on Trump's tweets after the G7. Trudeau personally snatched a defeat from the jaws of victory. Not only did he stab Trump in the back - he missed an opportunity to wish him well on his trip to Singapore to try to negotiate a deal with the North Koreans to de-nuclearize. He's so incompetent he's dangerous - as he keeps showing. Canadians - wake up!

Quote

 

Trump advisor Larry Kudlow think this sidesteps the real issue. He focuses on the bilateral meeting where the two leaders discussed trade. According to Kudlow, “they were getting along famously…We were very close to making a deal with Canada on NAFTA…”

CBC’s Rob Russo provides further details. At that meeting, he says, Trump unexpectedly waived his demand for a sunset clause, which was the main obstacle to an agreement. Suddenly, the logjam broke and a deal was within reach. When Trump took off for Singapore, the understanding was that the NAFTA negotiations would quickly resume. Everyone was optimistic.

Kudlow believes that at this meeting Trump and Trudeau effectively made an agreement to move on from their differences, but that Trudeau then violated it at the press conference.

In Trump’s mind, the decision to waive the sunset clause had been a generous act of reconciliation. Yet Trudeau publicly denigrated him just to score political points with Canadians.

Trump was livid. He found it duplicitous and humiliating. Indeed, Kudlow claims Trump was even fretting that it made him look weak just as he was going to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

So, Trump’s team is not arguing that Trudeau said something new or different at the press conference. Their claim is that at the bilateral meeting everyone agreed to move on, but that Trudeau then cheated on the agreement. This was the trigger for Trump’s tweets

 

.Link: https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2018/06/12/diplomacy-trump-style-understanding-narcissism/#.W4syoOhKiyI

[bush_cheney2004]

Trudeau accused Trump of trying to push Canada around after shaking his hand.

Well guess what Mr. Justin Trudeau, Trump is going to give you your wish and something to really complain about now.

[Zeitgeist]

3 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Trudeau accused Trump of trying to push Canada around after shaking his hand.

Well guess what Mr. Justin Trudeau, Trump is going to give you your wish and something to really complain about now.

It's all bullshit.  Trump didn't make any such overtures.  Stop doing damage control.  Trump mistreated Trudeau publicly after the G7.  That's it.  Trudeau said nothing wrong or surprising.

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

It's all bullshit.  Trump didn't make any such overtures.  Stop doing damage control.  Trump mistreated Trudeau publicly after the G7.  That's it.  Trudeau said nothing wrong or surprising.

 

Doesn't matter....Trudeau and his "base" love to bitch about Donald Trump, so now Trump will give them something to really bitch about.

[Zeitgeist]

7 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Doesn't matter....Trudeau and his "base" love to bitch about Donald Trump, so now Trump will give them something to really bitch about.

The negotiations won't go anywhere, thankfully. 

[bush_cheney2004]

13 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

The negotiations won't go anywhere, thankfully. 

 

That's OK.....the political theatre is priceless..like this:

http://www.artizans.com/images/previews/MAC3030.pvw.jpg

[bush_cheney2004]

CTV News interview...how Trudeau blew it on NAFTA:

 

 

[Zeitgeist]

What partisan drivel.  Of course the Conservative critic is saying Trudeau screwed things up.  Trump never had any intention of brokering a trilateral deal.  He is trying to dictate the process and admitted as much.  Mexico is perhaps the biggest fool here for bargaining alone.  NAFTA is a trilateral deal.  All three partners have to be at the table for this to be a fair process.  It's not bilateral and the U.S. cannot dictate.  Canada should walk away from this process because it's fundamentally flawed.  If the U.S. wants a bilateral deal, it can't be a form of NAFTA. 

Edited September 2, 2018 by Zeitgeist

[bush_cheney2004]

7 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

...  Canada should walk away from this process because it's fundamentally flawed.  If the U.S. wants a bilateral deal, it can't be a form of NAFTA. 

 

That's the best part...Canada could walk away, but Trudeau doesn't have the stones to do it.    

The Mexicans already made a deal....didn't owe Canada anything.

[Wilber]

10 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

It's all bullshit.  Trump didn't make any such overtures.  Stop doing damage control.  Trump mistreated Trudeau publicly after the G7.  That's it.  Trudeau said nothing wrong or surprising.

Trudeau might have been a little wiser not to have made his post G7 comments even if they were what a majority of Canadians were thinking. On the other hand, we don’t know what might have happened between the two of them that might have prompted those comments. Trump’s actions at the G7 pretty much insulted every other country there, just like NATO meeting.

[Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, Wilber said:

Trudeau might have been a little wiser not to have made his post G7 comments even if they were what a majority of Canadians were thinking. On the other hand, we don’t know what might have happened between the two of them that might have prompted those comments. Trump’s actions at the G7 pretty much insulted every other country there, just like NATO meeting.

It's a double standard if Trump is given a pass for directly insulting people while leaders from smaller countries can't make fair comments about unfair trade practices.  I can tell that the media and general public have become inured to this kind of bullying.  Trump is a rude bully who takes an extortionist approach to trade.  Call it what it is.  He feels no moral compunction about taking unfair advantage of people and publicly denigrating them.  It's unacceptable.  Trudeau said nothing wrong.  If anything, he has been too quiet on a number of fronts.  I'd say the same for other G7 world leaders and the Vatican.  It smacks of Chamberlain's approach to Hitler.  Trump isn't Hitler, but his leadership is insidious because by degrees the character of liberal democracy is being seriously compromised. 

[Wilber]

12 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

It's a double standard if Trump is given a pass for directly insulting people while leaders from smaller countries can't make fair comments about unfair trade practices.  I can tell that the media and general public have become inured to this kind of bullying.  Trump is a rude bully who takes an extortionist approach to trade.  Call it what it is.  He feels no moral compunction about taking unfair advantage of people and publicly denigrating them.  It's unacceptable.  Trudeau said nothing wrong.  If anything, he has been too quiet on a number of fronts.  I'd say the same for other G7 world leaders and the Vatican.  It smacks of Chamberlain's approach to Hitler.  Trump isn't Hitler, but his leadership is insidious because by degrees the character of liberal democracy is being seriously compromised. 

Just being pragmatic. I fully agree with Trudeau's remarks,  just not convinced it was the right strategy as far a NAFTA is concerned. Turned out to be a mute point anyway as Trump has admitted he had no intention of bargaining in good faith.

[Argus]

20 hours ago, paxamericana said:

Fake news not related to Nafta

You guys use that a lot. The problem I have with it is that the outlets you call 'fake' are the ones which have been respected for their journalistic integrity long before Trump came on the political stage and the outlets you laud are the ones who have been ridiculed and used as the punchline to jokes because they couldn't even SPELL integrity.

Much like your president.

[paxamericana]

On 8/31/2018 at 1:09 PM, Wilber said:

Trump rejects EU offer of zero auto and other tariffs.

And we are expected to swallow your BS about zero tariffs between the US and Canada.

 

 "Trump told Bloomberg that eliminating tariffs on U.S. car imports would do little to help the U.S. car industry, as European consumers would still not buy American cars. “Their habits, their consumer habits are to buy their cars, not to buy our cars," he said."

So this is the heart of it, even if you do free trade for one product it only benefits the EU. It has to be all or nothing on free trade. If the US give the EU free trade on cars then we loose leverage from them to negotiate other tariff down. Its free trade or back to tariff . Nothing wrong with that. 

As for Canada, you have nothing to leverage us with so you might as well go full free trade.

[paxamericana]

55 minutes ago, Argus said:

You guys use that a lot. The problem I have with it is that the outlets you call 'fake' are the ones which have been respected for their journalistic integrity long before Trump came on the political stage and the outlets you laud are the ones who have been ridiculed and used as the punchline to jokes because they couldn't even SPELL integrity.

Much like your president.

They lost their journalistic integrity when they decided partisanship in journalism was the goal. I remember when CNN and MSNBC maintained a level of impartiality. Similar to CNBC. Now they're just fake news. If they're going to do a story with that much hyperbole then put it as OP-Ed, that's fair game. Don't tell me it's news when you vomit your partisanship all over "news". 

[bush_cheney2004]

13 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

What partisan drivel.  Of course the Conservative critic is saying Trudeau screwed things up.

 

But it's not just Canadian partisans saying that Trudeau screwed up...the Mexicans didn't like Trudeau's double talk either, or the obsession with his "feminist agenda".

So Mexico turned the tables on Trudeau and threw Canada under the bus. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/does-mexico-throw-canada-under-the-bus-1.4807073