Rick, I think the problem is that for many companies look at the U.S. as their only market. My Father in law sells weird electrical doodads, and the company he used to work for is dying precisely because of that tunnel vision.
I did mention an auto plant, but that was more of an example to demonstrate that Cdn competitiveness can beat conditions in the U.S. Obviously the plant was going to be built to cater to the North American market, but when push came to shove high-tax gov’t health care Ontario beat out one of the lowest-taxed ban-the-unions regions in the U.S. And shipping to Europe via the St. Lawrence isn’t that tough
You only have to see a few ships full of raw lumber heading into the Pacific to realize there’s something mighty wrong with industry, when Asia will take our raw materials but not our finished products. It’s time to stop being what my high school geography class called a primary industry nation.
I don’t think it’s so much that Asia won’t take OUR finished products as it is that they don’t want to take finished products if they can avoid it. The U.S. and Europe have transitioned into service economies and our open to our manufactured exports; Asian countries are trying to be the guys who do the exporting. That’s a generalization but it’s, well, generally true.
If there’s a market we should be attacking I think it’s Europe.
I agree that you do get companies who get tunnel vision. In my experience, though, the common problem is that they become locked into a few key customers - not that the customers are from any particular country. I worked with one company this year who was selling 80% of its product to a single customer. When that customer went belly up, they had to declare bankruptcy. As it happens that customer was in the USA, but they learned their lesson. At the risk of sounding insensitive to your father in law’s earlier predicament - hell, for all I know he worked for the same company I’m referring to - companies dumb enough to NOT diversify their customer base will learn the hard way or die, and companies that do diversify will prosper.
I’m by no means trying to suggest we not expand our trade relationships, I just don’t want us reducing it with the USA. It’s not a zero sum issue.
