Photo credit: The Guardian
President Donald Trump and his top officials keep insulting Canada as they wage their unprovoked trade war against the country. From renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” to joking that Canada is “America’s 51st state,” the Trump administration has assumed that Canada would bend the knee to the United States – and a new report indicates that their actual response is not all what they expected.
Alternet reports that “[Flavio Volpe, the president of the Automobile Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada] said that auto parts makers were not intimidated,” reported The New York Times, Ian Austen on Monday. He said that last year, when the Trump administration proposed collecting tariffs on Canadian auto parts, “they understood that it would shut down the auto industry in a week.”
He added: “Ultimately, I think they will back off that. But if they don’t, they can have it.”
Earlier in the article, Austen reported about Prime Minister Mark Carney that he “made clear last week that he was in no hurry to return to negotiations and was focused instead on diversifying Canada’s trade and expanding its domestic economy.” In fact, Austen added that “with an insulted and angry nation solidly behind him, Prime Minister Mark Carney is charging ahead in a bitter trade war with the United States, risking a further fraying of what once was one of the world’s closest friendships.”
“Canadian officials have suggested that many of the targeted American items come from states where voters supported Mr Trump, though some political analysts question how much pressure that will actually put on the White House,” Austen reported. “The list also includes items with little significance for the Canadian economy, including the metal bands that attach erasers to pencils, migratory bird identification bands and fish egg incubators.”
Separately, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said Mr Carney had shut down the talks to gain “political leverage” at home, not because of what the US side had offered.”
Canada is doing more than accepting America’s challenge. Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently urged Carney to target imports from states that have supported him
and on which he still politically relies including “Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Texas and Wisconsin.” Speaking with Alternet, Dr Richard D Wolff – professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst – broke down exactly why Canada is doing this.
“I am not surprised that our government is surprised,” Wolff wrote. “Our government is busy strong-arming people around the world in every way that it can, militarily, economically, politically, and discovering time after time to their amazement, if you take them seriously, that the folks are going to resist. And that’s what’s going to happen.”
