The U.S-Canada trade deal status is simply a no-brainer. President Trump will answer questions about Canada and tariffs, he’ll put people into seats to discuss trade with the Canadian delegation, and he’ll give every outward appearance of being favorable to Prime Minister Mark Carney…. BUT…
In the background, Trump is simply waiting for the USMCA timeline to trigger a renegotiation. President Donald Trump is ambivalent to the trade partnership with Canada. This moot-status reality is why there’s no substantive engagement. ‘No deal’ -until USMCA- is a win for President Trump.
For some bizarre reason that I simply cannot fathom, almost every Canadian politician seems entirely oblivious to this reality. Instead, Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Mark Carney’s chief-of-staff, Marc-André Blanchard are once again coming to DC to ride their bicycles in slow circles at the bottom of the White House driveway while staring in the windows.
An article in Politico notes the Canadian premiers are now accepting the August 1st deadline will pass without any agreement, and the 35% reciprocal tariffs on non-USMCA products (meaning a lot of stuff) is going to trigger.
Literally, everything from Canada that has a non-USMCA component is going to be tariffed. Think about all the stuff from China, Asia (writ large) and Europe that Canada assembles for finished goods. All of that stuff will be subject to the tariffs.
That said, there’s good news coming from the recent meeting between Prime Minister Carney and the Premiers. Within their statement they use the term “developing large infrastructure projects.” That’s Canadian political codespeak for them realizing they are going to have to get back to regular energy development, raw material use/refinement and ACTUAL MANUFACTURING.
Canada is going to have to bring back their ‘dirty’ industrial jobs.
For our Treehouse friends in Canada, this is very good news. The Canadian assembly economic model has to change in order to get compliant with U.S. trade rules. THAT’S TRUMP’S ENTIRE POINT!
The environmentalists within Canada will not like this, but economically they will have no choice; it’s the only way to avoid a complete economic depression.
HUNTSVILLE, Ontario — Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canada’s premiers are tempering expectations that they’ll strike a new economic and security deal with Donald Trump by the end of the month.
“We would like to have the ideal deal, as fast as possible. But what can we get?” Quebec Premier François Legault said Tuesday. “You almost need to ask Donald Trump, and I’m not even sure he knows himself what he wants.”
It’s a shift in tone from the premiers and Carney, who ran for election on his economic record, arguing he’d be the best person to negotiate with the president. But Canada is finding it harder than it looks.
Carney met the premiers in Muskoka, cottage country north of Toronto, to update them on Canada-U.S. negotiations.
As the leaders emerged from a three-hour meeting, they downplayed hopes of an Aug. 1 deal, arguing that achieving a “good deal” is more important than hitting a deadline.
[…] As the negotiations continue, the premiers spent Tuesday carving out a strategy to offset the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs on the aluminum, steel, auto and lumber sector. They spoke about developing large infrastructure projects, breaking down trade barriers between provinces and encouraging a “buy Canadian” approach. (READ MORE)
Canada is going to go into a deep economic recession; there’s no way to avoid it. However, if they restart their industrial base, drop the ridiculous ‘green’ energy stuff, start exploiting their own natural resources and train an apprentice generation -just like we are trying to do- then Canada can bounce back stronger than ever.
We know there’s Canadian wolverines who understand this concept; we saw thousands of them in the Truckers’ vaccine strike. Make Canada Great Again, by Making Dirty Jobs Great Again, eh?
