What do all these products have in common ?
Sugar and products with more than 65% sugar content, Tobaccco, Peanuts and peanut butter, powdered milk, baby formula, Cotton, Beef, Animal feed, Anchovies.
These products have all been subject to huge quota tariffs imposed by the US, even before Trump started the tariff wars. These products and crops are subject to over 160% and higher tariffs if a certain quota threshold is met in the US. The US does this to protect their farmers and producers from having a market flooded with foreign alternatives and driving the local costs in order to compete down and possible push local producers out of the market. This is a form of protectionism that the US is doing.
So what exactly does this have to do with the infamous dairy tariffs that Trump keeps talking about ? Canada in turn, imposes a dairy quota tariff on dairy products up to 230% to do exactly the same thing as the US quota tariffs. Interestingly enough, the US have never come close to the quota, so the dairy products have aways fallen into the free trade agreement and NOT SUBJECT TO THE TARIFF.
So my question is why the lies and why the hypocrisy ?
If you follow Trump’s logic, it was all about fentanyl, but when it was proven that a fraction of 1% has historically flowed from Canada, that argument was shelved.
Then came the arguments about illegal aliens, but when it was proven that there is no illegal alien movement from Canada of any significance at all, that argument was also shelved.
So that leaves us with the only playing card that Trump has that is difficult to dispute. A 230% tariff on dairy that was negotiated as part of the international rules and regulations concerning trade and tariffs. AS I stated this tariff has never been enacted because the quota was never met.
His other argument was the 200 billion dollar surplus in trade, however, anyone that has studies 2nd grade math will note that the surplus is only around 90 billion dollars, and if you exclude the HIGHLY DISCOUNTED crude Oil that the US buys from Canada, the surplus on Canada is only around 40 billion. If you factor in the travel south and US commerce that number shrinks even further.
So that brings me to my original point and question. Why does the mainstream media continue to buy into the lies and hypocrisies Trump continues to spew regarding trade with Canada ? Some will say that they aren’t promoting the lies, just reporting on it. However, if they do not correct the lie, then they are contributing to the lie by omission.
This is a long note, but there needs to be some truth injected into the whole trade wars with the US. specifically for our US friends who are seeking to understand the truth.
With that I leave this to be discussed ?
Well, for some reason – whether it’s a reflexive trust in the system, or something more along the lines of it being difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends upon them not understanding it – the media can’t wrap their head around the idea that the President of the United States might be a sleazy, lying, dirty fink of a rat bastard.
It’s worth highlighting here that Trump believes that not paying for goods and services is what smart business people do, and we can interpret his discussion around trade deficits in these terms. Trump is not setting his agenda here – he has people whispering in his ear who know how to pull his strings and push his buttons to their own ends – but he is giving us a window into his understanding of the world. And he believes that America paying for what it buys is beneath them. So, this is how he himself interprets arguments around trade.
The media, again, chooses not to understand this, and instead abdicate their imagined duty to inform people of the truth, and pat themselves on the back for being megaphones for whoever’s in charge today. Doesn’t matter that they know that person has never successfully said something factually correct or not.
We also have to take into consideration who is paying the media… Postmedia, which publishes many Canadian papers, is owned by US hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, known for close ties to the Republican party.