US VS G7

[tomahawk6]

Watch Fox news and the comments about Trudeau.It isn't pretty.Best to disregard McCain as he is a neverTrumper.

 

[Altair]

Watch Fox news and the comments about Trudeau.It isn't pretty.Best to disregard McCain as he is a neverTrumper.

McCain has stopped Trumps agenda before, healthcare being one instance.

Seeing how much of the GOP is pro trade, and NAFTA is a act of congress, and would thus need to be a act of Congress to cancel, having men like John McCain saying such things and taking stances with Allies like Canada and the G7 is a good thing, and not to be disregarded.

 

[tomahawk6]

I don't see NAFTA going away.Any new agreements might have to be approved by the Senate. They wont like the 270% tariff on US dairy products.What Trudeau forgets is that a lot of Canadians shop just across the border to avoid higher Canadian prices.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I don't see NAFTA going away.Any new agreements might have to be approved by the Senate. They wont like the 270% tariff on US dairy products.What Trudeau forgets is that a lot of Canadians shop just across the border to avoid higher Canadian prices.

Sure do. $1.94/ gal US compared to $1.35/ ltr Cdn. 24 beer for $13.00 (5%) - $2.40 for the cans = $10.60/ 24. Cheaper food and all within a 15 minute  drive. 26oz porterhouse steaks (can't find them in Canada anymore) shrimp boat and all the fixings including a drink for $30.00. I can be stateside in less time than it takes to drive across town. I make no apologies for saving my money.

 

[Infanteer]

That's been going on for decades.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

That's been going on for decades.

I also remember when our dollar was stronger than the USD and the exchange rate was in our favour. Those were even better times. Unfortunately, I don't think well ever see that again.

 

[Altair]

Sure do. $1.94/ gal US compared to $1.35/ ltr Cdn. 24 beer for $13.00 (5%) - $2.40 for the cans = $10.60/ 24. Cheaper food and all within a 15 minute  drive. 26oz porterhouse steaks (can't find them in Canada anymore) shrimp boat and all the fixings including a drink for $30.00. I can be stateside in less time than it takes to drive across town. I make no apologies for saving my money.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.TAX.MRCH.WM.AR.ZS?end=2016&start=2016&view=bar

Average tariff rates charged by G-7 nations:
USA: 1.6%
EU: 1.6%
UK: 1.6%
Italy: 1.6%
Germany: 1.6%
France: 1.6%
Japan: 1.4%
Canada: 0.8%

Those who live in glass houses...

 

[dapaterson]

I also remember when our dollar was stronger than the USD and the exchange rate was in our favour. Those were even better times. Unfortunately, I don't think well ever see that again.

You mean 2011?

 

[Altair]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/trump-threatens-to-end-all-trade-with-allies.html

Leaving the G7 summit on Saturday, President Trump said that the U.S. might end all trade with America’s closest allies if those countries don’t submit to his demands over reduced trade barriers. Trump also confirmed that he had told the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Italy that there should be no tariffs between them and the U.S. of any kind. Whether Trump’s characteristically hyperbolic threat, or overarching proposal, will be taken seriously is another matter.

Referring to what he called “ridiculous and unfair” tariffs on U.S. imports, Trump said, “It’s going to stop — or we’ll stop trading with them. And that’s a very profitable answer, if we have to do it.”

“We’re the piggy bank that everybody is robbing, and that ends,” added Trump, who also repeated his exaggerations of U.S. trade deficits by tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. The president framed his trade attacks as a defense of U.S. national security, citing the weakening of the country’s “balance sheet” as the corresponding threat.

Perfect way to sink the global economy.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

You mean 2011?

I consider 2011 a short lived anomoly. Before 1960. I was seven but still  remember many trips across the border. I most certainly cared little for politics but even a 7 year old knew our dollar was stronger while perusing the shelves.

 

[Eaglelord17]

I don't see NAFTA going away.Any new agreements might have to be approved by the Senate. They wont like the 270% tariff on US dairy products.What Trudeau forgets is that a lot of Canadians shop just across the border to avoid higher Canadian prices.

That is true, however you are also forgetting that Americans also shop in Canada to take advantage of the higher value American dollar. Its a two way street and one that was working quite well until Trump decided to try and play hardball and discovered that his allies aren't going to be pushed around that easily.

 

[Altair]

USA GDP: 19 Trillion


Canada GDP: 1.8 Trillion
Mexico GDP: 1.1 Trillion
UK GDP: 2.7 Trillion
France GDP: 2.6 Trillion
Germany GDP: 3.6 Trillion
Japan GDP: 5 Trillion 
Italy GDP: 1.9 Trillion

18.5 trillion dollars.

Might be time to go to the G6 until the post trump era

 

[PuckChaser]

Might be time to go to the G6 until the post trump era

Bail on a major partner because he's saying things you don't like? Nobody bailed on Italy when they (as part of PIGS) almost tanked the EU.

 

[Altair]

Bail on a major partner because he's saying things you don't like? Nobody bailed on Italy when they (as part of PIGS) almost tanked the EU.

America is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

Italy falling over their own feet wasn't intentional,  america threatening and acting on those threats of a trade war on those who don't submit to its demands is intentionally taking down and working against the goals of the G7.

The only comparable to this is the united front(until recently)  against russian action in the Crimea.

 

[Altair]

Perhaps Trump should just wait until 2019 and deal with Scheer, instead of the incompetence of Team Trudeau  :rofl:

and right on cue,  Andrew scheer wants those canadian tariffs due for July 1st put in place immediately.

 

[Brad Sallows]

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress.  Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage.  As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

 

[Edward Campbell]

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress.  [/color]pt]Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage.  As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

And that I believe is what is behind the quite detailed list of retaliatory tariffs that Canada (officials, not ministers, not even François-Philippe Champagne, maybe the pick of the litter in Team Trudeau, had that sort of a detailed plan in mind ~ that's officialdom at its best) proposed the day after Trump imposed his tariffs on aluminium and steel. Each tariff is designed, I suspect, to stick a pin into a specific state or even congressional district where our officials think support for President Trump might be wavering. The Europeans are making a similar list but they don't know the Americans as intimately as we do.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Now both sides are coming out, and if believed, Trudeau is THE bad guy here. Trump gave up the sunset clause and Trudeau DID stab him in the back. The clause appeared to be one of the very few sticking points left and Trump gave it up. I wonder if Trudeau is trying to draw heat from the dairy marketing board?

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/kevin-libin-trudeau-stumbled-into-a-trade-war-that-isnt-all-trumps-fault?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1528971836

Trudeau has reason to raise a glass himself, now that this rush of pent-up anti-Trump Canadian catharsis has obscured how much he too is to blame for this trade-war disaster

 
“There’s a bit of a patriotic boost going on these past few days,” chuckled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an event hosted the other day by the supply-managed farmers who have been celebrating that we’re all blaming Trump for this mess instead of their politically powerful protectionist racket, the primary culprit. They were even giving out free milk and eggs near Parliament Hill, Tuesday. Trudeau has reason to raise a glass himself, now that this rush of pent-up anti-Trump Canadian catharsis has obscured how much he too is to blame for this trade-war disaster.

Largely missed in the sudden and furious reaction to Trump’s salty tweets Sunday was a report by CBC’s Rob Russo on The National that night, which clarifies just how wonderfully it appears trade talks were going between Canada and the U.S. That is, until Trudeau held his post-G7 press conference to remind Trump that Canada would “not be pushed around” by any American president and called the president’s treatment of Canada “kind of insulting.”

Trudeau wasn’t wrong, of course, but his comments were clearly ill-timed. Russo reported that Trump had offered a major giveaway to Trudeau in a NAFTA meeting on the G7 sidelines, finally agreeing to waive his longstanding demand for a sunset clause, the automatic expiry of the deal if it wasn’t renewed every five years, which had been one of the last sticking points. Russo said that Trump’s sudden concession was “surprising (to) his own chief negotiator, according to people who were there, and people (there) think that it’s great.” At the end of the summit, with a NAFTA deal perhaps within grasp, the celebrating was underway. Then came the news conference.

It’s obvious to everyone, and probably even to Trump himself, that the president overreacted, calling Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak,” in his fit of pique. But it’s also not hard to see why he might have felt antagonized. As Don Lenihan, a senior associate at the progressive think-tank Canada 2020 noted in a commentary this week, “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.”

Trudeau, who has since refused to confirm or deny Trump’s offer about the sunset clause, might not have meant it that way (Lenihan suggests he was actually trying to play it safe, sticking to his previous script, since the deal over the sunset clause hadn’t yet been made public). But the president was also hours away from meeting America’s arguably most dangerous enemy, Kim Jong Un. That kind of pressure is hard to imagine; the resulting over-sensitivity to even a mild display of back talk — just after he left a successful meeting in which he apparently offered a significant, friendly gesture — is, however, perfectly easy to imagine.

And after Kim and Trump’s cordial summit, Canada might just rank as the country least able to get along with the U.S. right now. That can’t just be Trump’s fault. From throwing a stink bomb into NAFTA talks with their “progressive” demands, to bringing in protectionist union leader Jerry Dias to consult on the negotiations, to their defiant defence of the unjustified tariff wall protecting Canada’s dairy barons, the Liberals have not done an excellent job of figuring out how to make a deal with a man who literally loves nothing more than making deals. After nearly a year of discussions, things seem at an all-time low. That cannot be blamed all on one man.

Meanwhile, our own overreaction to some ill-considered comments from that one man is growing dangerous for the future of free trade. The last few days have been paradise for protectionists, with protected-milk parties on Sparks Street, unanimous declarations in the House of Commons praising our mighty agriculture cartel, and Tory leader Andrew Scheer demoting MP Maxime Bernier for refusing to publicly submit to the party’s proudly anti-market beliefs about groceries. The steelworker union is today demanding big, fat tariffs against U.S. imports, and also big, fat handouts from taxpayers to help them survive their battle against consumers. And Dias, head of the labour union Unifor, says we need more tariffs, faster: “I think we have to fight fire with fire … strike back… hit hard,” he said this week. “I believe it’s the only real way to get this guy’s attention.”

Dias evidently doesn’t understand how to handle this White House any better than when he was called in to taint the NAFTA talks, because Canada already has Trump’s attention, unfortunately, and the challenge is how to make the best of it. It was Trudeau’s responsibility to make sure America’s attentions remained friendly and Canada’s exports kept flowing, not to stumble into a trade war. That we’re nevertheless here means he must share the blame.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

America Trump is actively working against the rest of the G7 at this point.

There are things Trump can do alone as the executive, but few of them are beyond intervention by Congress.  Congress has the power to override Trump on tariffs - it isn't politically easy, but all that is needed is to convince enough people that the economic damage will outweigh the political damage.  As the former accumulates, the threshold will be reached by an increasing number of members.

Japan's reaction seems to be one of sitting on the fence. Italy, appears behind Trump. We're not hearing all the doomsday rhetoric from them. We know the EU ties to the globalist cause. More like against the G4 of Canada, Britain, France and Germany, the globalist, open border countries. The ones with the press, image and political backing to spin this their way.

So I don't see Trump against the G7. I see it as 4 against 3.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Note Japan, Italy: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1804yr.html

Good overall picture of the US trade activity by sector: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html  >>> imports are down, exports are up. Go figure.