quote:Canadian anger boiled over yesterday at the U.S. government's refusal to comply with a landmark NAFTA ruling that should have spelled an end to punitive softwood duties on lumber from Canada.
Federal and provincial officials accused the United States of reneging on the 11-year-old North American free-trade agreement, with Ottawa renewing threats to slap billions of dollars of sanctions on American goods if Washington doesn't recant.
Sometimes I wish we'd just say hang it and start trading a lot more with other countries -- ones who will abide by the rules they wanted put in place.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2004
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It could be because those duties are all that keep what's left of American loggers working. They are definitely a dying breed. Environmental watchdog groups have imposed such strong influence against logging that it is far, far more expensive for US loggers to work their trade, when they can at all.
I don't know much about NAFTA, or about Canadian environmental regulations on logging, but I do know a little about what has happened to the logging community of Alaska and the PacNW. We belong to the forestry association because my husband sells logging trucks. We go to their conventions each year. Such as they are. They're usually only 100 or so people. Local loggers speak rather bitterly about the glut of Canadian lumber and how they can't compete. I don't know if that's fair or not, but these people aren't exactly living high on the hog.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Even with the (unfair or not) duties that a neighboring country levels, it is often still a better deal to trade with the neighboring country instead of shipping raw goods like lumber across the world.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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There's always another side: think how many more jobs american companies could offer if they weren't spending so much money on overpriced timber.
Economies don't stay the same, and those that try to, stagnate. Trade protectionism is not the answer -- if we're that determined to keep loggers around, go ahead and provide them subsidies; it'll be less costly for american consumers.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Sometimes I wish we'd just say hang it and start trading a lot more with other countries -- ones who will abide by the rules they wanted put in place.
Considering Canada is our best friend... LONG LIVE CANADA!
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Subsidies work just like tariffs, they make it easier for the supported company to compete. The only difference is where the money is applied : Tariffs make Canadian lumber more expensive, subsidies make American lumber cheaper. Either way it's unfair competition, or at any rate non-free trade.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Trade protectionism is not the answer -- if we're that determined to keep loggers around, go ahead and provide them subsidies; it'll be less costly for american consumers.
Less costly in the short term, but it isn't necessarily a good idea to treat one of your largest trading partners as badly as America has been treating Canada in recent years.
quote:Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.
The assertion came in oral arguments over a federal lawsuit by Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian citizen who charges that United States officials plucked him from Kennedy International Airport when he was on the way home on Sept. 26, 2002, held him in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention center and then shipped him to his native Syria to be interrogated under torture because officials suspected that he was a member of Al Qaeda.
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KoM: no, they work similarly to tariffs. Tariffs impact all production from Canada, no matter how needed it is in the US, and add that cost to american businesses directly. Subsidies only cost american businesses indirectly, are more spread out, costing each business less, and perhaps most importantly, work well in cases where trading partners (such as Canada) can provide needed volume but American producers can't -- since the cost is only added based on what American producers produce, rather than on every bit of imported lumber.
You're right, subsidies are not free trade, and I didn't say they were. They are, however, less negatively impactful than tariffs, and a reasonable stepping stone to real free trade. Its called a compromise position.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I don't see the compromise. America has taken unilateral action that violates our free trade agreement and has refused to budge in spite of a number of independent rulings in Canada's favour. That's not compromising, that's being stubborn. If America can't afford to drop the subsidies because its logging industry would collapse then it should be negotiating a specific amendment to the agreement to deal with this case rather than essentially sticking its fingers in its ears and saying "nah-nah, we aren't listening!"
America could have taken a reasonable approach to this, you know, rather than proceeding unilaterally. The subsidies themselves are the smaller part of the problem -- the problem being America treating Canada poorly in a number of ways.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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America's current actions are tariffs (duties), which add direct costs to canadian businesses and make prices high for american businesses. They are what was ruled against.
Subsidies would have a substantially smaller negative economic impact on all parties to protect the same number of American loggers.
I don't like them, either, but they are a compromise position, and not what is currently in place, despite what seem to be several people's misconception otherwise.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Oh, I see what you're saying now. I'm not sure why I read "tariffs" in your first post. "Subsidies" and "tarrifs" are clearly not the same word.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Heh, I was wondering what was up; it seems at least one other person misread my post that way as well.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Hehe. I was in Montreal on Thursday when the Globe and Mail paper there was discussing this on the front page. The article title was CANADA FIRES BACK AT THE US. It had me and my dad laughing, because it sounded like we were at war, and it was a dispute about lumber. Especially with the cover picture being two very stern faced men.
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