Another week, and another series of pricing threats and suggestions for the annexation of President Trump.
It started with the announcement of a policy imposing prices of 25% on all imports of steel and aluminum. In the case of Canada, these prices would be stacked in addition to the 25% rates previously introduced on most Canadian exports, which are in a 30 -day detention period. If Mr. Trump follows both, the rate on steel and aluminum will be 50% amazing.
[Read: Nations Denounce Trump Tariff on Metals and Warn of Retaliation]
Then, the president told his advisers to propose new prices that take into account trade barriers and other economic approaches from American trade partners than his administration deems unfair. This is a radical approach that not only includes prices that other countries place on American products, but the taxes they charge on imported products, such as TPS in Canada; All the subsidies they give in industries; and their exchange rates.
“Canada has been very bad with us on trade, but now Canada will have to start paying,” Trump said in making the announcement. “Canada will be a very interesting situation because, you know, we just don’t need their product.”
Among the things that can be targeted, according to an information sheet published by the White House, is 3% taxa Canada has started to apply for Canadian income from large technological companies like Google, Amazon and Netflix last year. Again, all the rates that emerge from this review will be added to everything that Trump has already threatened to impose on Canadian exports.
[Read: Trump Says He’ll Rework Global Trading Relations With ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs]
A small number of American business leaders have started to denounce Mr. Trump’s pricing plans, if they are not expressed directly for Canada.
Jim Farley, Ford Managing Director, told an industry conference that “a 25% rate through the border of Mexico and Canada will make a hole in American industry that we have never seen” .
Speaking of Mr. Trump’s plan to relaunch American manufacturing through prices, he has added: “So far, what we see is a lot of costs and a lot of chaos.”
[Read: Ford Chief Executive Says Trump Policies May Lead to Layoffs]
Mr. Farley’s message echoes that Canadian officials told anyone at Washington. This week, the 13 provincial and territorial leaders visited the American capital to deliver this argument and others on the importance of trade between countries and observations on the interconnected nature of their economies.
While 11 of the ministers finally obtained a last-minute meeting at the White House, it was with Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff for the legislative affairs and director of the president.
“I do not think that the Prime Ministers met very important people,” said Gary Mar, president and chief executive officer of the Canada West Foundation, a research group in public policy based in Calgary.
Mr. Mar was the official representative of Alberta in Washington from 2007 to 2011. He said that the place of Canada in the United States had changed considerably since then.
“I think our relationship with the United States has changed forever,” said Mar. “Donald Trump is not the reason for this. It is a symbol. People who went to war with the United States – this generation has disappeared. And in the United States, a culture of success has been replaced by a grievance culture. »»
Aside from cultural changes, Canadian politicians hoping to change minds in Washington can prove that many people close to Trump categorically reject.
Many, if not most, Trump’s pricing actions have closely followed Robert E. Lighthizer, the US trade representative in the first Trump administration.
Lighthizer does not believe slightly, that the movement towards a more open trade in the past four decades has benefited in the United States.
“The global trade system has failed our country,” wrote Mr. Lighthizer, who directed the American side during the renegotiation of Alena, wrote this month in a guest test for the opinion section from the New York Times. “It has not weakened because free trade does not work. He failed because free trade does not exist. »»
[From Opinion: Want Free Trade? May I Introduce You to the Tariff.]
Although Mr. Lighthizer does not specifically discuss trade with Canada in this essay, he has little good to say on this subject in his book: “No business is free: change course, follow China and help American workers. “
“Canada is actually a fairly parish country-and sometimes completely protectionist,” he wrote. “For years, Canada has operated a dairy supply chain management program that would reduce the Soviet commissioner.”
Mr. Lighthizer, who, like Mr. Trump dehorches trade deficits, offers a new global negotiation order which would divide the global economy in two. In a group, countries were generally responsible for lower prices. However, if one of the members of the group had developed a trade surplus, the others would increase the prices against its exports until this surplus disappears. And this group of countries would charge high prices to outside countries – “non -democratic countries as well as those that insist on using begging aggressive industrial policies”, he writes.
In a profile of Mr. Lighthizer, Elizabeth Williamson and Ana Swanson, my colleagues from Washington, write that when economists, like Canadian politicians, maintain that high prices will not increase the prices of the Americans and could even cause a recession, ” M. Lighthizer simply maintains that economists are wrong. »»
Trans Canada
This section was written by Vjosa IsaiA journalist-researcher based in Toronto.
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Ian Austen Reports on Canada for Times and is based in Ottawa. Originally from Windsor, Ontario, he covers the politics, culture and the people of Canada and reported the country for two decades. It can be reached at austen@nytimes.com. Learn more about Ian Austen
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