Unlikely given the timing. Again the incompetence shows in the announcement. Carney will recognize Palestine in September and give Hamas a year to disappear and hold democratic elections in Palestine. What happens if they don’t? We unrecognize them? Usually, you put the horse in front of the cart.
What is the most popular party in Gaza? Hamas. They will just rebadge, if they feel the need, and keep control.
How are Hamas and the Liberals the same? They put their ‘principles’ ahead of their citizens and people will end up starving.
Being compliant with CUSMA is not the panacea people think it is. (Expensive. Bureaucratic. The problem with tariffs is even the threat of volatility causes good international customers to rethink.)
Not allowed to be genuinely concerned about mass starvation, got it.
Out of curiosity, are Macron and Starmer also just trying to distract from domestic political issues with this, or is it only Carney that’s using the situation that way?
Not a panacea, but 93% trade at 0% tariff with the other 7% at 35% is still better than everything at 15%. Note the linked story is entirely about the food industry, pointing especially at the compliance burden on smaller operations. But the story also rightly points out that the margins in the food industry are usually very thin. Oddly, it then immediately pivots to pointing out that Japan, EU, etc have negotiated lower tariff exposure, but then fails to note that “lower” in this case is still higher than the low profit margins cited in the previous paragraph:
And make no mistake: for the food industry, where net margins are often razor-thin — typically in the range of 2% to 10% — a 35% tariff is not just inconvenient; it’s existential. It can erase profitability overnight, making entire product lines unviable and undermining long-term investment.
There is no country in the world currently protected by trade agreements in any meaningful way. If you provoke Washington, tariffs — or their threat — will follow. Since Trump’s return, no countries have drawn more retaliatory attention than China and Canada. Both have responded with countermeasures, unlike Japan, South Korea, the U.K., or the European Union — all of which have successfully negotiated more stable trade terms and now face significantly lower tariff exposure than Canada.
I maintain that we’re better off clinging to CUSMA as long as possible rather than accepting blanket tariffs in the 15% range (no doubt with exemptions for things that would be exceptionally painful for the US such as energy exports). All the deals signed so far are going to hurt the US economy, and it’s not an unreasonable strategy to hold tight in hopes that the ensuing economic pain will weaken Trump’s position.
We’ve all got to remember: it’s not Trump who’s the problem, it’s all of the Project 2025 types whispering in his ears. The 51st state nonsense – and midnight rambling on Truth Social, etc – is useful because it gets all the libs upset so they will (hopefully) ignore all the really nasty stuff going on, like blatant election interference and packing the courts. I sure hope Carney & his advisors are smart enough to ignore the froth and concentrate on the developing tsunami.
My guess is that some of the targeted tariffs (25% ones) get pulled. Maybe dairy, since Donald is fascinated by udders, or cereal crops and fruits. The intention of those tariffs was to get the attention of red states to advocate for the removal of US tariffs but it’s pretty obvious at this point that the Trump administration has zero interest in listening to anyone that isn’t directly paying them money.
I understand the number to be just over 40% of canadian companies have registered under CUSMA who could have done so. It is the Mexican companies that are in the 95% range and one of the reasons Trump has granted then a reprieve.
Do you have a cite for that number as it seems very low and there is no official registry….however 85-90% of exporting companies can be compliant. I have a hard time thinking that if the companies are eligible why they would not be in compliance.
EDC (a crown corp) blog says only 38% have registered. They got that information from the US Census, according to the article. Canada only has 386,000 employees making it difficult to find anyone to collect such information apparently.
They haven’t needed to be in compliance so they don’t expend the effort. Now they panic. ChatGPT’s take, I won’t post the whole thing:
1. Documentation Burden and Regulatory Fatigue
Canadian companies, especially SMEs, often view origin certification and other CUSMA paperwork as complex and resource-intensive.
Many exporters assume “automatic” access to the U.S. market continues post-NAFTA, underestimating the need for formal declarations of compliance.
Businesses are already stretched thin by compliance demands in other areas: carbon reporting, provincial tax harmonization, ESG disclosures, etc.
When the baseline tariff rate was low anyway the extra paperwork to register was likely seen as low ROI. Canadian businesses, in my experience, are remarkably lazy.
And RBC makes the same point - well not my snarky one but the reason why CUSMA compliance is suddenly of interest
s a result, we estimate roughly 86% of Canadian exports to the U.S. should ultimately be able to cross the border duty free, provided those exports meet North American rules of origin requirements.
However, only about 38% of U.S. imports from Canada were traded under CUSMA provisions in 2024. We believe this low percentage was largely due to the administrative burden of meeting its rules of origin requirements when a large share of U.S. general tariff rates was already zero outside of the North American free trade agreement.
The U.S. product list of zero tariff rates in the 2020 CUSMA agreement covered about 94% of Canadian exports in 2024 by our count—including most energy products and potash fertilizer. We believe the reason CUSMA/USMCA tariffs were not used in most cases last year was, because many Canadian exporters rely on U.S. general tariffs that were already very low or zero under World Trade Organization rules without the administrative burden imposed by CUSMA’s rules of origin.
Do whatever you want. The US is also a sovereign nation and can do whatever it wants as well. And it can be pissed after it was negotiating a peace deal that immediately broke down the day after France announced support for Palestine. But hey, who gives a shit if Canadians have jobs right? Just as long as this announcement was made at this time rather than some 70 years in the past during this neverending conflict. But Canada has the billions to cover the cost of not making a deal surely. Maybe a trade deal with the UK and France will make up the short fall.
If your position is that Canada can make no international policy choices that differ from the US or they will inflict debilitating economic damage, then you are arguing the country needs to be a vassal state. Cloaking that loss of independence in the guise of pragmatism doesn’t actually change the end result.
Alignment of principal and alignment of interest were easier prior to Donald Trump - without a doubt that has changed but most Canadians seem willing to at least try.
As for
It seems odd to tie July reported job losses (while the unemployment rate held steady) to a late July policy declaration. Chances are, to my mind, they should be associated with Donald Trump’s ongoing economic clown show.
