The US has demonstrated itself to be unreliable. What advantage is there to try and participate in global trade from within a country that will turn tariffs on and off like a toddler with a light switch? Business likes a stable environment to work from. Without substantial systemic change, that stability is demonstrably not in the US.
Anyone who thought the US was "reliable" was not considering past events on a long enough time horizon, or never bothered to understand US voters (a fatal ignorance), or assumed that a sizeable fraction of Americans could basically be forever told without consequences "you can't have that" by a minority establishment, among other probable failings.
I agree with both of you on business wanting "stability, predictability, and reliability" but we need to look in the mirror as a nation as well. Canada has been less than consistently pro-business in our policies. Whomever wins this election needs to realize this and make the effort to work with the other party to at least come to a bi-partisan agreement on the very highest level of policy direction...kind of like the Republicans and Democrats had at one time on foreign policy objectives. We won't attract large scale foreign investment if our policies change radically every four years when a different party is elected. Both parties will have to move toward the centre in order to achieve that.
farmersforum.com
Hanson has been a Trump sycophant for years, so no surprise he’d be part of the ‘5D chess’ groupies trying to defend this inane ‘bull in a China shop’ approach to trade. He equates not actually having a coherent strategy with not wanting to be ‘constrained’ by one. Meanwhile the U.S. is badly damaging its reputation as a stable and reliable trade partner, and leaving everyone guessing about their next move and its timing. That’s self-defeating by any reckoning. The flip flop on electronics tariffs against China shows just how completely Trump is winging it, and how he and his crew have utterly failed to game this out.
www.winnipegfreepress.com
news.ontario.ca
www.visualcapitalist.com
www.ctvnews.ca
Little more movement on the home front. Hopefully we start seeing more to the west.
Alt: https://archive.ph/kpJIyNew Brunswick, Newfoundland sign free trade agreement
The New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador governments signed a memorandum of understanding on free trade and labour mobility on Thursday, one week after New Brunswick signed a similar agreement with Ontario.
This is part of the reason the Scandinavians remain relevant, despite their small populations.Even worse, we're near the bottom at R&D investment (1.8%) as compared to other countries, which tends to relfect our risk averse financing and taxation culture...
Private sector = evil, public sector = almighty and eternally virtuous
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Ranked: Countries Investing the Most in R&D
Amid the rapid pace of technological innovation, we show R&D investment by country as a percentage of GDP.
www.theglobeandmail.com
eos.org
