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Canada, U.S. reach deal to lift steel and aluminum tariffs


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Trump messed up the negotiations with China so he had to do damage control and cave in to Trudeau with Canada trade. The longer US-China negotiations stall the more Canada can benefit. Not only did Canada get everything we wanted on this, but Canada is benefiting on the tariffs Trump and China imposed on each other. Case in point, Canada's Dollarama now has a huge advantage over America's Dollar Tree. This is only the beginning of the opportunities that Canada can realize. "When two states war, a third will take advantage." Sun Tzu - Art of War.

Edited by Neil Austen
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8 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Now GM no longer has its main excuse for major plant closures.  If GM proceeds with firings in markets where its sales continue to do well, citizens in those jurisdictions should boycott GM. 

 

GM doesn't need any excuses...plant closures have been happening for decades.

GM was boycotted when it was "rescued" by government bailouts to preserve jobs.

 

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4 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

GM doesn't need any excuses...plant closures have been happening for decades.

GM was boycotted when it was "rescued" by government bailouts to preserve jobs.

 

Yes but GM’s sales are booming in the jurisdictions where it’s firing workers.  Surely these plants can retool, or do we simply accept that GM should turn over all increased profits to shareholders as thousands of workers lose their jobs?

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1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Yes but GM’s sales are booming in the jurisdictions where it’s firing workers.  Surely these plants can retool, or do we simply accept that GM should turn over all increased profits to shareholders as thousands of workers lose their jobs?

 

Workers have also benefited from GM's recent success through profit sharing and restructuring that laid off thousands of other workers.

Shareholders (including private and public pension plans) also deserve a return on their investment.

Workers have and will continue to lose/gain jobs, just as they always have.    Nothing special about GM auto plants.

Local automotive sales are not tied to corporate decisions across nations and continents.

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4 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Workers have also benefited from GM's recent success through profit sharing and restructuring that laid off thousands of other workers.

Shareholders (including private and public pension plans) also deserve a return on their investment.

Workers have and will continue to lose/gain jobs, just as they always have.    Nothing special about GM auto plants.

Local automotive sales are not tied to corporate decisions across nations and continents.

I believe that government legislation, enshrined in trade deals and labour law, should tie sales levels in a jurisdiction to employment in that jurisdiction to at least some degree.  To a large extent failure to implement such policies will mark a significant decline in industrial production by human workers, unless of course they are low paid offshore workers.  Only a much smaller group of highly skilled programmers and engineers will participate in fully automated production.  

Do you believe in employment and having a middle class?   Do we accept having a largely low paid service economy, or worse, a large segment of the population paid low wages to do nothing?   Conditions have changed and can only be addressed with thoughtful policy.  Corporate boards and shareholders have no incentive to address this.  

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1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

I believe that government legislation, enshrined in trade deals and labour law, should tie sales levels in a jurisdiction to employment in that jurisdiction to at least some degree.  To a large extent failure to implement such policies will mark a significant decline in industrial production by human workers, unless of course they are low paid offshore workers.  Only a much smaller group of highly skilled programmers and engineers will participate in fully automated production. 

 

This idea has several legal and economic shortcomings, and ignores the fact that worker productivity has actually increased in many jurisdictions.    The service sectors are now larger than manufacturing and employ more workers, so how would your ideas be applied ?

 

Quote

Do you believe in employment and having a middle class?   Do we accept having a largely low paid service economy, or worse, a large segment of the population paid low wages to do nothing?   Conditions have changed and can only be addressed with thoughtful policy.  Corporate boards and shareholders have no incentive to address this.  

 

If you are advocating for government control of manufacturing investment and decisions (fascism), then count me out.

Workers can readily find jobs in many other sectors today, and real wages are rising in several jurisdictions.    Others will lose employment consistent with market conditions, just as they always have.  The so called "middle class" cannot be perpetuated by the conditions that created it when those conditions no longer exist.

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13 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

This idea has several legal and economic shortcomings, and ignores the fact that worker productivity has actually increased in many jurisdictions.    The service sectors are now larger than manufacturing and employ more workers, so how would your ideas be applied ?

 

 

If you are advocating for government control of manufacturing investment and decisions (fascism), then count me out.

Workers can readily find jobs in many other sectors today, and real wages are rising in several jurisdictions.    Others will lose employment consistent with market conditions, just as they always have.  The so called "middle class" cannot be perpetuated by the conditions that created it when those conditions no longer exist.

I’m merely advocating for thoughtful policy.  Hey we had quotas in the auto pact and Trump doesn’t hesitate to intervene in “natural market conditions” through the application of tariffs.  I just see the changes to wages and the reduction of middle class living standards as tech and offshoring take over employment and we transition to a service economy.  Richard Florida says the way to prevent this is to make service jobs pay more.  Others talk minimum wages or even guaranteed basic income, but of course such measures represent a lowering of income and living standards.  I’m not sure the economy will adjust as nicely as you suggest.  Also remember that to some extent the US has been artificially stimulated through borrowing to pay for tax cuts.  That can’t last much longer as debt levels continue to rise.  

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1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

I’m merely advocating for thoughtful policy.  Hey we had quotas in the auto pact and Trump doesn’t hesitate to intervene in “natural market conditions” through the application of tariffs.  I just see the changes to wages and the reduction of middle class living standards as tech and offshoring take over employment and we transition to a service economy. 

 

Tariffs are permitted by current WTO rules, and many have existed long before Trump came along.   If you do not like offshoring (and for me that includes sending U.S. jobs to Mexico and Canada), then you agree with Trump's anti-globalist positions and actions.

 

Quote

Richard Florida says the way to prevent this is to make service jobs pay more.  Others talk minimum wages or even guaranteed basic income, but of course such measures represent a lowering of income and living standards.  I’m not sure the economy will adjust as nicely as you suggest.  Also remember that to some extent the US has been artificially stimulated through borrowing to pay for tax cuts.  That can’t last much longer as debt levels continue to rise.  

 

Economic activity has very little to do with "nice"...never before and certainly not in the future.   There have always been winners and losers to varying degrees.   The U.S. will continue to finance government through deficit spending as long as it enjoys the advantages of being the world's reserve currency...been doing this for a long time...way before Trump.

You cannot preserve past conditions and outcomes no matter how hard you advocate...economics doesn't care.

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3 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Tariffs are permitted by current WTO rules, and many have existed long before Trump came along.   If you do not like offshoring (and for me that includes sending U.S. jobs to Mexico and Canada), then you agree with Trump's anti-globalist positions and actions.

 

 

Economic activity has very little to do with "nice"...never before and certainly not in the future.   There have always been winners and losers to varying degrees.   The U.S. will continue to finance government through deficit spending as long as it enjoys the advantages of being the world's reserve currency...been doing this for a long time...way before Trump.

You cannot preserve past conditions and outcomes no matter how hard you advocate...economics doesn't care.

Trump has been all about a past when America was “great”. I’m all for advancement, but whose?  The economic dislocation has been fast and furious and our days of the small elite Bezoses of the world accumulating unprecedented levels of wealth as real wages stagnate is a problem worth considering, as it was a century ago with Rockefeller and company.  Same as it ever was?  Okay.  And governments must respond as in the past.  

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Just now, Zeitgeist said:

Trump has been all about a past when America was “great”. I’m all for advancement, but whose?  The economic dislocation has been fast and furious and our days of the small elite Bezoses of the world accumulating unprecedented levels of wealth as real wages stagnate is a problem worth considering, as it was a century ago with Rockefeller and company.  Same as it ever was?  Okay.  And governments must respond as in the past.  

 

Correct, but U.S. economic activity and government actions are not for the benefit of conditions in Canada.   Bezos and Rockefeller are Americans...so where are Canada's billion dollar moguls and why are they not spurring the Canadian economy ?

It's just weird that you invest so much hope and dependence on what is happening in a foreign country, while demanding far less from your own.

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4 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Correct, but U.S. economic activity and government actions are not for the benefit of conditions in Canada.   Bezos and Rockefeller are Americans...so where are Canada's billion dollar moguls and why are they not spurring the Canadian economy ?

It's just weird that you invest so much hope and dependence on what is happening in a foreign country, while demanding far less from your own.

Do I have to list all the Canadian billionaires again?  Stop.  We know about the Westons and Thompsons and Balsillies of the country.  Again I’m talking policy.  

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1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Do I have to list all the Canadian billionaires again?  Stop.  We know about the Westons and Thompsons and Balsillies of the country.  Again I’m talking policy.  

 

If you only want to talk policy, then again Canada has done itself no favours, pitting one province against another on energy and other issues.

It is incumbent on Canada to get its act together for Canadian reasons, not depending on what foreign governments or corporations policies may be.

This all comes back to the basic fact that Canada chooses to be extraordinarily dependent on the U.S. economy, even while complaining about same.

 

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30 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

This all comes back to the basic fact that Canada chooses to be extraordinarily dependent on the U.S. economy, even while complaining about same.

OTOH maybe you suckers are an easy mark due to imagining you're extraordinary or something - blow a little smoke up your butts now and then and you're good to go.

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1 minute ago, eyeball said:

OTOH maybe you suckers are an easy mark due to imagining you're extraordinary or something - blow a little smoke up your butts now and then and you're good to go.

 

We're good to go either way...far more diversified and far less dependent on exports than is Canada.

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39 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

If you only want to talk policy, then again Canada has done itself no favours, pitting one province against another on energy and other issues.

It is incumbent on Canada to get its act together for Canadian reasons, not depending on what foreign governments or corporations policies may be.

This all comes back to the basic fact that Canada chooses to be extraordinarily dependent on the U.S. economy, even while complaining about same.

 

Not really.  If Canada redirected trade, inconvenient and unnecessarily expensive as it might be, we’d still have the issue of automation and offfshoring to low cost jurisdictions.  What fixes that problem?   

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4 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Not really.  If Canada redirected trade, inconvenient and unnecessarily expensive as it might be, we’d still have the issue of automation and offfshoring to low cost jurisdictions.  What fixes that problem?   

 

It is not a problem...it is a feature.   Learn to invest...compete...and develop new markets.   Canada's mining companies have no problem with raping and pillaging in "low cost" jurisdictions.

Either way, it is not up to GM or the U.S. to fix problems in Canada's trade flow.

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12 hours ago, eyeball said:

God-dammit, I always forget how that makes you right. Happens every time, it's just not fair.

 

Look, miss eyeball, you can waste time arguing with that alien head or you and your fellow canucks can spend it planning on how you are going to destroy the US and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for all peoples of the globe?

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3 hours ago, Mike Otkins said:

 

Look, miss eyeball, you can waste time arguing with that alien head or you and your fellow canucks can spend it planning on how you are going to destroy the US and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for all peoples of the globe?

Go piss up a rope.

Edited by eyeball
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  • 1 year later...
2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Trump imposes 10% tariff on Canadian aluminum because of dumping.    Canada claims is was just cross border "storage" because of the pandemic.

Freeland scrambles...again.

Trump imposes 10% tariff in order to please Russia. It's interesting, isn't it, that he uses 'national security' to put tariffs on Canadian aluminum, but Russian imports will continue unimpeded, and likely grow, since America can't make enough to satisfy its manufacturing.

Speaking of which, US manufacturing will now be laboring under higher prices for aluminum, thus making their products less competitive with foreign produced products. So that will cost thousands of jobs, and then when Canada slaps tariffs on things like US appliances - like from that factory where the sniveling old buffoon made his tariff announcement, that will cost more. The only people who will benefit - Russia.

Two U.S. companies, Century Aluminum Co. and Magnitude 7 Metals, have lobbied Mr. Trump to reimpose tariffs, arguing that aluminum imports from Canada have surged since they were lifted. But Canadian metals producers, as well as most of the U.S. industry, say there is no surge and that overall imports from Canada are comparable to their levels before the tariffs.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-to-retaliate-with-36-billion-in-measures-against-us/

Edited by Argus
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