Canadians Should Not Be Lulled Into Ratifying The 'New' NAFTA
https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/council-canadians-blog/2020/02/canadian...
"The trade deal is flawed: inequality would grow and the environment deteriorate further. Civil society organizations in Mexico, the US and Canada demand that Canada not be lulled into rubber-stamping the new NAFTA..."
CETA: 'Fake News' and 'Canada Bashing?'
https://canadians.org/blog/ceta-fake-news-and-canada-bashing
"Financial newspapers are stunned: The Netherlands, the nation that invented trade, rejecting a trade agreement? How is that possible? Well, it was possible due to the incredible work of Dutch grassroots groups and their efforts to alert the Dutch public to CETA's effects. As mentioned previously, CETA is less about trade than about rules that give corporations special rights. Many are getting the message that being against CETA is not being against Canada or European friendship but about being a blueprint for trade that usurps power from democratic bodies and gives it to large multinational bodies."
Pity we had no such 'incredible grassroots groups' to inspire critical resistance to NAFTA 2.0, or that in Canada it is our 'democratic bodies' themselves, with politicians of all parliamentary parties that are consenting and urging Candians support this usurpation of power to 'give it to large multinational bodies'. Time for Canadians to stop hiding from the awkward truth of institutionalized political treachery on the part of people that are supposed to represent our interests, not big business or Washington.
Not Strategic For US to Keep Making Enemies - Galloway (and vid)
https://twitter.com/RT_America/status/1273327369416253446
"The US Senate has approved new sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia."
New NAFTA Takes Effect Next Month, US is Already Threatening Legal Challenges
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/new-nafta-united-states-canada-challenges-...
"Trump's trade rep says Canada, Mexico could face cases after deal enters force July 1."
Pompeo Demands Europe Ditch Trade With China and Choose Freedom Over Tyranny (In Favor of US)
"US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scolded Europeans for not ditching China in favor of US as a trading partner, claiming that any reliance on Beijing constitutes 'abandoning who we are' and prizing 'tyranny' over 'freedom.' China, Pompeo insisted, was trying to convince the West to 'throw away the progress we in the free world have made with NATO and other institutions...and adopt a new set of rules and norms to accommodate Beijing.' This, he declared, was frankly unacceptable. 'There's also no way to straddle these alternatives without abandoning who we are,' Pompeo proclaimed. 'Democracies that are dependant upon authoritarians are not worthy of their name.' Speaking of authoritarians, the Americans hailed the progress the US was making in pressuring its allies to shut China out of their economies, referring to the UK's reversing course on including 5G networks..."
US Plans To Slap Tariffs on Aluminum Imports from Canada, Bloomberg Report Says
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tariffs-aluminum-us-canada-trade-1.5623245
"The United States is planning to re-impose tariffs on aluminum imports from Canada, Bloomberg reported late on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. If Canada declines to impose export restrictions, the US will announce on Friday, the re-imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on aluminum from the country, the report said. The tariffs would then be implemented by July 1, the report said, which is also when a new Canada-US-Mexico Agreement on trade is expected to take effect."
'A win, win, win agreement which will provide stability for many years to come.' - Chrystia Freeland -
Tough Talk, Tariff Threats Resurface As USMCA Readies For Wednesday Debut
https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2020/06/28/tough-talk-tariff-threats-r...
"If the long-awaited debut of Canada's new trade pact with the United States and Mexico heralds a new day in North American relations, Robert Lightizer sure has a funny way of showing it.
With the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement coming into effect Wednesday, the US trade ambassador reminded a congressional committee that within the velvet glove of trade diplomacy, Donald Trump's White House wields an iron fist of zero tolerance enforcement. And instead of friendly declarations of trilateral solidarity, the prospect of punitive Section 232 tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum - an economic headache that tormented negotiations during a low point in Canada-US relations - is back and looming large.
'One would think that this would have heralded a new era, but in some respects, this is a situation that just continues to roll on and persist,' said consultant Eric Miller, president of the DC based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group..."
Good thing Canadians don't bother to protest economic surrender agreements with USA anymore and aren't paying any attention. Good thing too we're trashing our relationship with our second largest trading partner China, to make ourselves even more dependent on the whims and vicissitudes of Washington, even as it collapses.
I live in BC. NAFTA always allowed the US to destroy our forest industry with recurring lawsuits. We now mostly just ship raw logs to US plants. Port Alice, Gold River, Tahsis, Powell River and Campbell River are some of the towns on Northern Vancouver Island that most Canadians have never cared about that used to have good paying jobs in pulp and paper and sawmills and are now low wage tourist economies.
Indigenous Peoples Denounce USMCA As A Fraud
https://twitter.com/KanahusFreedom/status/1280870644259815425
"WE DENY CONSENT!"
Notice, like their officials, many Canadians mouth empty words of 'support' for Indigenous rights, yet continue to support termination and extinguishment initiatives domestically and internationally if they think it will increase their share of the avails of colonization, occupation and resource thievery. USMCA is a white supremacist instrument of Indigenous genocide.
Mexico State Oil Company Files $22 Billion Debt Swap Amid IMF Threats and White House Visit
https://www.mintpressnews.com/mexico-pemex-debt-swap-imf-usmca/269356/
"Mexico's economy is put in the crosshairs by the IMF as the 'new NAFTA' takes effect and AMLO is forced to make concessions to avoid an even deeper recession..."
Never mind. Freeland et al would never let such a squeeze play happen to Canada, right? Right?
Mexico State Oil Company Files $22 Billion Debt Swap Amid IMF Threats and White House Visit
https://www.mintpressnews.com/mexico-pemex-debt-swap-imf-usmca/269356/
"Mexico's economy is put in the crosshairs by the IMF as the 'new NAFTA' takes effect and AMLO is forced to make concessions to avoid an even deeper recession..."
Never mind. Freeland et al would never let such a squeeze play happen to Canada, right? Right?
Canadian and Mexican citizens get zero benefit from these deals but we keep signing them. I can remember a time when the NDP used to be opposed to NAFTA and all its spawn but like all the other issues that have been around for thirty years the more the neo-cons pushed the harder they retreated.
Indeed. This was perhaps the most uprotested and uncriticized 'free trade' surrender agreement in our history. Especially here. Curious how some can get so riled up about China or Huawei but pay no attention whatsoever to our steady takeover by the truly evil ones to the south. Bad media and lazy group think is leading us to some increasingly dark places we may not wish to find ourselves.
Reform of North American Economy Will Negate Need for Tariffs, Trudeau Tells Trump
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-tariffs-nafta-call-1.5647863
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Donald Trump to think twice Monday before imposing new tariffs on Canadian aluminum...Canada has been on the outside looking in when it comes to the coming into force of NAFTA's successor, the US Canada Agreement which took shape in 2017 and 2018 before a backdrop of steadily worsening relations between Trump and Trudeau..."
Screwed again.
'Very Serious Threats': US Reportedly Ramps Up Pressure on Nord Stream
"...Speaking in a 'friendly' manner, the US side stressed that it wanted to prevent completion of Nord Stream 2, observers of the online talks said. 'I believe the threat is very, very serious,' one of these revealed to the German outlet. These threats are consistent with comments by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, in which he warned that companies involved in the project had better 'get out now...
Apart from Russia's energy major Gazprom, which is developing the project, five European companies have joined. Those are France's Engie, Austria's OMV, the UK-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell, as well as Wintershall and Germany's Uniper. Speaking to Welt am Sonntag, the latter called US attempts to undermine the 'important infrastructure project' a clear intervention into European sovereignty. Both European businesses and government officials have repeatedly decried US attempts to meddle in European energy policy by sanctioning Nord Stream 2, with some even calling on Brussels to work on countermeasures..."
Pompeo acts like he's dealing with servile easily muscled vassal states like Canada or Ukraine. He's not and everybody knows the dying psycho empire has lost all sense and proportion in its statecraft or the ability to enforce its will. Very dangerous times of 'last chance' power-plays and increasingly provocative even existential threats against the vital interests of significant others. 'May you live in interesting times' and perhaps even do something good about it.
Cyprus Blocks EU Canada Trade Deal Over Halloumi Cheese
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/cyprus-blocks-eu-canada-trade-deal-over...
Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland on US Imposed Aluminum Tariffs
'We will not back down' : saved by the Cypriots but f**ked by our own...
The nazi's grand-daughter, having screwed up two major trade deals, will now pretend to 'stand up to Trump'. Perhaps they also hope it might raise Liberal points after 'we, we, we, we all the way home.' I hope it all works out and we won't have to buy F-35 fighter jets to atone for perceived bad behaviour later . Even from a bourgeois neoliberalist pov it seems somewhat counterproductive to risk alienating both your leading trading partners under the leadership of 'a team' with such an obvious history of badly mishandling such things. It's also soon to be election time in United Snakes so no telling what can happen to such an issue at such times, especially if, as rumoured, Canadian strategy may be formulated based on conversations with Democrat insiders with anything but Canadian best interests uppermost in their minds.
International Trade Agreements Violate Indigenous Nations Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources (1/2)
https://twitter.com/RussDiabo/status/1305523600200433666
Canadian 'Free Trade' is never free. Always stolen.
Asian Nations Sign World's Largest Free Trade Deal
https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-17/Global-Business-Asian-nations-si...
"The long awaited Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) covering nearly a third of the global population and almost 30 percent of global GDP, was signed by its 15 members at the fourth RCEP summit in Hanoi. It would be the world's biggest free trade agreement measured in terms of GDP..."
Including Australia and New Zealand. Sorry Canada, you chose a good screwing over with Trump's NAFTA2 and kidnapping a Chinese exec in Vancouver. You'll go down the shithole with the crazy neighbours instead.
Europe and China Approve Landmark Investment Treaty, Snubbing US
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951400927/europe-and-china-approve-landma...
"China's president and European leaders met Wednesday to mark their agreement on an investment deal between the European Union and China despite a request for talks on the issue by the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The deal is a diplomatic victory for Beijing and a domestic one for Xi. In Washington, it will be seen as a snub to the incoming Biden administration, which last week urged the EU to wait..."
Meanwhile Canada continues its economic seppuku by trashing an earlier economic advantage with its second largest trading partner in favour of a closer, fatal embrace with an American hegemon in rapid and terminal decline.
The US' Fury over the China-Europe Investment Deal shows how rattled and isolated they are. It's clear who's been 2020's big winner
"It's no coicidence that Washington slapped new tariffs on European goods just hours after the agreement was signed. A year of repeatedly seeking the international villification and isolation of Beijing has ended in abject failure. The US reacted with fury. The signing created a storm of controversy in Washington with Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger descending into a tirade, accusing the EU of disregarding the interests of the United States on the eve of a new administration.
The result is that the American position, despite all the fiery rhetoric is increasingly isolated when it comes to China. It's demanded other countries decouple and cut ties with Beijing in the same way it is doing, but the opposite is happening, because it's really about US interests first above everyone else..."
Good doggy Canada will always obey Washington's wishes and its liberals always approve.
Canada can deal with Biden's embrace of Buy American, says Freeland
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/biden-freeland-buy-american-not-new-1.5...
"As US President Joe Biden signs an executive order to strengthen Buy American provisions, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland insisted today the federal government knows how to deal with American protectionism..."
Yes. We've seen how before. Abject surrender.
The Keiser Report: China overtakes the US (Yet Again!)
"In this episode of Keiser Report, Max and Stacy look at the data out of Europe showing that China is not the EU's number one trading partner, overtaking the US. They discuss the implications..."
Raise the Alarm: Stop CETA! (and vid)
https://twitter.com/ClareDalyMEP/status/1360156690365222915
"CETA is a corporate power-grab that attacks food, farming, labour and environmental standards. CETA is another brick in the corporate wall locking in profits for multinationals and locking out ordinary people from decisions about their lives."
'The right deal at the right time.' - Crocodile tears Chrystia Freeland - on the ugly Canadian trade deal
China records 18 percent quarterly economic growth
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/17/chin-a17.html
"...The move of the Chinese economy towards pre-pandemic growth will likely be largely welomed as providing a stimulus to the world economy. But it will not be viewed so favorably in the US, where the continued economic expansion of China and the possibility that it could become the world's largest economy is regarded as a threat to American global economic supremacy..."
But let's continue to sabotage our trading relations with a rising China so we can harness ourselves instead to the largest debtor nation on earth - the American hegemon now in deep decline.
There's a Reason Trudeau's Washington Visit Starts at the Capitol
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trudeau-washington-visit-capitol-1.6251642
"...Democrats there are putting the finishing touches on a massive piece of legislation with both domestic and international implications - a nearly $2 trillion US bill that is the most important legislative act of Joe Biden's presidency.
One element in particular has Canadian policy-makers terrified: a tax-credit for electric vehicles that favours cars assembled in the US, prompting warnings from Ottawa of lost jobs, disrupted supply chains and a retreat from six decades of cooperation in auto production.
Trudeau is expected to press Biden to ensure that the Line 5 pipeline keeps flowing to Eastern Canada amid a bid from Michigan's state government to shut down a portion that runs under the Great Lakes..."
So much for Yankee promises in NAFTA 2...Also, as I understand it, not that it matters, Jagmeet supports this ecocidal pipeline status quo also, no?
US, Canada & Mexico Convene Talks...
"For the first time in five years, US, Canada and Mexican leaders met at the White House to strengthen ties and tackle the range of issues they all face including immigration, trade deals and competing with China.
Molly Barrows has more on the meeting meant to revive the relationship between the three nations. Then, former UK MP George Galloway and Ed Martin, president of the eagle forum share their perspectives."
