A straight face on trade bars

The leaders of the NAFTA nations -- President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Felipe Calderon -- will hardly be meeting as "Three Amigos" at their summit in Guadalajara tomorrow and Monday.

Canada and Mexico have been particularly rattled not merely by the U. S. financial crisis but by the policies hatched to deal with it. Their economies were already being damaged by the United States' obsessive, if understandable, concerns with border security. Now even further damage is threatened by perverse climate-change and energy policies.

The range of NAFTA concerns was expressed in a statement yesterday from the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), which is made up of prominent U. S., Canadian and Mexican businessmen. Significantly, the statement was mainly about the threat of U. S. policies.

Beyond the adverse inflationary and interest-rate implications of Mr. Obama's Keynesian "stimulus," the statement points to the protectionist threat of "Buy American" policies, which clearly go against the commitments made at the London G20 meeting held earlier this year.

Apart from protectionism and trade and border restrictions, the biggest dangers come from climate-change policies, which themselves have powerful trade implications. The United States has threatened "carbon tariffs" to punish trading partners who refuse to punish themselves by slashing emissions. The NACC speaks out against such tariffs, but still refrains from attacking the whole climate-change-policy juggernaut, perhaps because some of its members still hope to profit from it. The trilateral group calls for "global consensus" on climate policy so as to minimize job losses. At least that acknowledges that climate-change policies will cost jobs, as opposed to Mr. Obama's fantasy of a government-guided transition to a "green" economy.

The NACC document does not mention the considerable policy threats to Canada's oilsands. Under the Waxman-Markey bill (as it now stands, awaiting Senate approval), U. S. federal agencies would be forbidden from procuring such "unconventional" oil because of its greater life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions. Such policy represents sheer perversity if the United States is really concerned about energy security.

The NACC statement -- perhaps for the sake of balance -- calls upon Canada and Mexico not to pursue local preference along the lines of "Buy American." But there is little danger there.

Rick Bonnette, the Mayor of the Ontario community of Halton Hills, caused a stir recently when he suggested an effective "Buy Anything But American" policy. But while emotionally satisfying in the short-term, such gestures are dangerous. Mr. Bonnette suggested that "It's time we showed some Canadian backbone." Unfortunately, when it comes to the counterintuitive benefits of trade, such backbone usually winds up being synonymous with boneheadedness.

In fact, Canada's premiers, led by British Columbia's Gordon Campbell, appear to be well aware of the dangers of extending local preference. Mr. Campbell is keen to dismantle existing restrictions, which would both strengthen Canada's hand when negotiating with the United States, and make provincial procurement a better deal for the Canadian taxpayer.

Apart from this weekend's meetings, Mr. Harper is due to meet with Mr. Obama one on one at the White House next month. He needs to go well prepared to elevate Canada up the list of White House priorities.

Former Canadian ambassador to the United States, Allan Gotlieb, has pointed to the dangers of the fact that Canada is clearly not top of mind for Mr. Obama. But he suggests that Ottawa too has displayed a lack of interest in a strategic review of the relationship. This is dangerous, given our continuing enormous reliance on U. S. trade. Mr. Gotlieb notes that Canada has been culpable for not having made more effort to strengthen and deepen the NAFTA relationship, and stresses that the U. S. "security leviathan" has been joined by trade protectionism and environmentalism as a triple threat to Canada. That threat is closely tied with a new era of Big Government in Washington.

Protectionism is increasing not least because of greater trade-union influence, both in the White House and the Democraticcontrolled Senate. It is uncertain if trade unionists are economically brain dead or simply display stunning short-term selfishness, but their primitive support for local preference is a proven job destroyer. The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Auto Workers and the Council of Canadians all want to attach "Buy Canada" conditions to domestic stimulus spending, thus making it even more of a counterproductive boondoggle. Fortunately, even NDP premiers such as Gary Doer have told them to stow it.

Mr. Obama's perverse policies make it all the more essential that Canadian companies look outside the United States for new markets, especially in China and India.

China has recently come under attack at the WTO for its own protectionist policies, specifically restricting the export of raw materials. In June, U. S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk declared: "We are deeply troubled that this appears to be a conscious policy to create unfair advantages for Chinese industries....Now, more than ever, we must fight against this kind of domestic favouritism."

"carbon tariffs" to punish trading partners

This is the same old same ol'. Big government tax hikes for us that are supposed to be for getting even with our Canadian and Mexican enemies.

The United States has threatened "carbon tariffs" to punish trading partners who refuse to punish themselves by slashing emissions.

All nothing but leftist lunacy, deciding whether to shoot yourself in the head once or twice.

Cap and trade is one of the most asinine and self-destructive policies ever proposed in the US. But if that policy did make sense, it would also make sense to put carbon tariffs on nations that do not have similar policies. And if that made sense, the biggest tariffs of all should be put on US manufacturers producing in China and other cheap labor nations.

Just questions of how stupid and self-destructive a nation wants to be. The only sensible thing to try for now is to defeat the basic cap and trade legislation.

It’s far worse than you think.

If your take on how bad things are is as reliable is your guess as to what I'm thinking, then we could be in pretty good shape after all. OK, we got the crazies in charge and they're up to no good. That tells us nothing about how things are now and how things will be --it only gives us yet another excuse to whine and frankly we don't need more of those.

People whose opinion I respect greatly have told me that the worse that can happen is 'NewDeal 2.0'. My opinion is that I don't know what's going to happen, but considering how easily America blew off ND1.0, we're looking at a lot of strength here.

I hope you and your greatly respected advisers are right because if the economy continues to decline, it will only serve to further inflame the populous. Social unrest and breakdown of civilization tend to squelch economic prosperity. (no winners)

BTW: due to a couple of good turns of events in our lives, there won't be a whole lot of *whining* around this house for the foreseeable future.

I'll due my best to keep ya’ll honest, in the meantime.

BTW: due to a couple of good turns of events in our lives, there won't be a whole lot of *whining* around this house for the foreseeable future.

I'll due my best to keep ya’ll honest, in the meantime.

I hope you and your greatly respected advisers are right ...

Ah, it was my mistake for giving you to believe that I thought everything was going to be OK. Maybe I should have underlined caps the part about "I don't know what's going to happen." The future is up to us, but as for the present, so far things really haven't gotten that bad (yet). Like it or not (!) the economy's still getting better and we're no where near in the mess that Carter left.

The weird part is that Obama's trying to seize control of everything may actually be a good thing, he'll over reach and totally fail. His failure would be better than the rot we got bit by bit with FDR, LBJ, and Carter.

See the similarities in what Hitler did to the German economy and what Obama is doing? Looks like he went high taxes, high manufacturing, government spending and protectionist (keeping money in Germany). Funny thing is Hitler was anti-union.

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch16.htm (economic policies toward the end)

It's usually not good to use Nazis or Hitler as comparisons for U.S. politics. Why? Because contradictory evidence is so easy to find with nuts like Nazis. From the article you posted:

Hitler found his greatest support in traditionally conservative small towns. He campaigned with attacks on Marxism, making it clear that by Marxism he meant the Social Democrats. Hitler appealed to morality, attacking free love and what he inferred was the immorality of Berlin and some other major cities. He promised to stamp out big city corruption...

Does that sound at all like Democrats and Bambi? No, it sounds like something a DUmpster Dem would use to smear W.

“He *appeared* to be for the common man and critical of Germany's “barons.” To the unemployed he promised jobs and bread. His party had the appeal of being young and on the move. Disillusioned communists joined his movement, as did many unemployed young men and a variety of malcontents. In addition to finding support in small towns, he found support among the middle class. He found support too from some among the newly rich and among some aristocrats. He found support among a few industrialists and financiers who wished for lower taxes and the arrest of the labor movement. From wealthy contributors, Hitler was able to set up places where unemployed young men could get a hot meal and trade their shabby clothes for a storm trooper uniform.”

This sounds like Barry. (at least some of the things he promised)

Hitler was a politician. You will be able to find some similarity between him and any politician. They pander to all groups. Big differences between Hitler and Bambi: Hitler never won a national election and the Nazis never won a majority in the parliament. Similarities: Hitler wanted to run a car company and he wasn't a German citizen.

Bambi is much closer to Jimmy Carter. And Jimmy Carter is a much more effective foil if you want to actually sway someone. A ton of people remember Jimmah and his micromanaging and failure. People hear Hitler and they just think "Haulocaust" and rightly so.

It's not so much the politician as his advisers and his handlers.

Like you said, Hitler and Obama’s gift was their gab.

Others used this popularity/hypnotism to pass legislation, create emergency acts and make deals with international tycoons in order to fulfill their power mad schemes..

Not a lot has changed over the years.

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