My guess is that it would be in breach of NAFTA and WTO trade rules, ironically enough. The whole point of those agreements is to reduce the ability of governments to target foreign companies and treat them more harshly than domestic companies.
I’m not sure that’s the case. One of the articles I read indicated that farmers in the US have already felt the effect of the Chinese threat to put tariffs on soybeans.
Farmers by the nature of their business don’t have a lot of flexibility once the planting is done.
They planted soybeans last month, in the expectation that China would continue to buy them.
Now they’re locked into growing soybeans, with considerable uncertainty what the market price will be if they can’t sell them in Chinese markets.
And they’re being told that uncertainty is the direct result of Trump’s tariffs …
My views, and those of many intelligent Canadian Conservatives, are similar to those espoused by David Frum in The Atlantic or the book Trumpocracy. America is a great nation with a diverse and intelligent people and is not equivalent to any one individual.
Some in Canada are more critical of American hegemony than I am. Trudeau will become more popular due to the obvious over-the-top words chosen by Trump’s lickspittles. Trudeau and Freeland had the good sense to include luminaries like Mulroney early on, and this issue will probably not be seen in mostly partisan terms here.
Canada does depend, in total, more on the US than vice versa but Trump has also picked fights with the EU and Pacific trading blocks too at the same time. The problem for the US is that it does need steel and aluminium. Canada and the EU, if forced to retaliate, have been much more strategic in picking US sectors that will harm politicians without overly inconveniencing local citizens due to alternate suppliers — we would pay more in Canada for lawn mowers and bourbon and many other similar rarely purchased goods. The biggest sting would be auto parts and the used car market would benefit.
In the long term, this would cause considerable economic harm to many countries. Canada has recently signed a trade agreement with the EU and Trans Pacific partners. The US would suffer less but would certainly lose more influence and, if more anti-American attitudes took hold, could have substantial damage in some sectors.
That said, I suspect Trump’s outbursts are not a complete surprise and people will judge actions more than rhetoric.
My views, and those of many intelligent Canadian Conservatives, are similar to those espoused by David Frum in The Atlantic or the book Trumpocracy. America is a great nation with a diverse and intelligent people and is not equivalent to any one individual.
Some in Canada are more critical of American hegemony than I am. Trudeau will become more popular due to the obvious over-the-top words chosen by Trump’s lickspittles. Trudeau and Freeland had the good sense to include luminaries like Mulroney early on, and this issue will probably not be seen in mostly partisan terms here.
Canada does depend, in total, more on the US than vice versa but Trump has also picked fights with the EU and Pacific trading blocks too. The problem for the US is that it does need steel and aluminium. Canada and the EU, if forced to retaliate, have been much more strategic in picking US sectors that will harm politicians without overly inconveniencing citizens due to alternate suppliers — we would pay more in Canada for lawn mowers and bourbon and many other rarely purchased goods. Car parts would be the biggest hit and the used car market would expand.
In the long term, this would cause considerable economic harm to many countries. Canada has recently signed a trade agreement with the EU and Trans Pacific partners. The US would suffer less but would certainly lose more influence and, if more anti-American attitudes took hold, could have substantial damage in some sectors.
That said, I suspect Trump’s outbursts are not a complete surprise and people will judge actions more than rhetoric.
Exactly. But remember… “they’re patriots”. :rolleyes:
Dr_Paprika, i also enjoy reading Frum’s commentaries. Critical but not hysteric (we’ll just have to forgive him that while “axis of Evil” thing - irrational exuberance or something. 
)
On top of that, prices for most agricultural products are set by commodity exchanges (unless a farmer has an existing contract to produce something at a pre-determined price, but that price will have been determined by the commodity exchange at the time of signing). There’s nothing commodity traders like more than to overreact to news that has a potential bearing on future prices of those commodities. It takes no time at all for something like a major tariff to impact the spot price of a commodity.
They’ll feel it, but not enough will feel it in time. Besides, with the exception of Wisconsin, most farmers are in states that went for Trump by double digits. Maybe Iowans have second thoughts but nothing in Iowa’s in play until 2020. The battleground constituencies that gave Trump the presidency aren’t farmers but people from the Heroin Belt, formerly known as the Rust Belt.
Futures markets were created out of a need to offload risks of future fluctuations by hedging the other side. They are an insurance policy. Greater risk of greater volatility and uncertainty increases the cost of buying that insurance right away.
Remember the special election shift has averaged 17 and the generic tracker is averaging 7 to 8 over the long haul. Trump having won by double digits does not mean for sure safe. Depressing your side’s turnout is the best way to have result be more a shift on the 17 side.
Hey now, Steve King is up for reelection. If the ass-kicking they’re looking to receive on pork and soybeans leads to the racist shitstain losing his election, however unlikely, I’ll consider it a victory.
No House seats in play in Iowa this fall? 
As much as I love this idea, can you imagine the tantrum trump would throw if he realized this was happening?
Holy shit.
And this was exactly the theses in a Mcleans (sort of like Time magazine for Canada) article I just read (but can’t find a link for now, sorry!). They made the point that Trump, overall, doesn’t care if other people suffer, but he’s uniquely positioned to be made to suffer himself. The published a list of businesses he’s directly involved with, plus other businesses that buy or sell his products, with the suggestion that Canadians, as individuals, start boycotting them.
Too bad I already don’t buy any of his crap, so far as I know…
I disagree. Saying the hardship is the fault of other countries is basically what Trump is doing and will make Americans want to fight back with more tariffs. Lightening up will be seen as appeasement and rewarding the enemy. It’s got to be framed as it actually is, a logical reaction by these countries to Trumps attempts at bullying.
These two posts probably got duped with the edit, though I’m not sure which should be the final version. Let me know and I can fix it.
[/moderating]
Surely the “blind trust” he put his businesses in would insulate him such that those actions would have no impact on our foreign policy, right?
Isn’t that one of the reasons for requiring such divestiture? (Such as when Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm so he couldn’t be attacked by foreign peanut tariffs.)
Not sure why it let me post twice, but the version on top is slightly better. It was obvious what happened, so posting again to apologize seemed extraneous. Sorry.
I don’t agree with Frum about everything, at all, and self-identify mainly as an economic conservative and social moderate. I think Frum is a good and coherent writer, however, and I liked his recent book. I have mixed feelings about W but these days he looks more like a gentleman, even a scholar.
Hopefully Trump becomes less Trumpian, or less cyclothymic. Canada and the US have a long partnership, as do other countries. I was less shocked by Trump than his advisors trying to impress him.
Many nations of the world use Tariffs agains the USA? Why not level the playing field. They will buckle, if they want to export to us.
There was a level playing field, until the United States imposed tariffs on its closest allies.
Those allies have now imposed equivalent tariffs to re-balance the playing field.
We can keep doing this as long as the US does.
And there’s nothing wrong with individuals boycotting Trump and Trump products.
But gouvernements under NAFTA and WTO cannot target foreign companies for special treatment. Those two agreements are protecting Trump’s foreign assets from being targetted by other countries.