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‘Oh Well!’ NAFTA Talks Hit Dead End As Trump’s Chevy Impala Diplomacy Fails
As it turns out, showing people a picture of your Chevy Impala isn't the best way to go about repairing fraught relationships on the way to renegotiating complex trade agreements.
The week started with progress on a bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico and now, it's ending with a breakdown in talks between the Trump administration and Canada, leaving the future of NAFTA in doubt.
To be clear, the deal Trump struck with Mexico on Monday was tenuous at best, considering it would like
Little seen footage of Trudeau reacting to Trump’s ultimatum on NAFTA
This was never a negotiation. It was always tRump’s way or the highway. Let’s see how GM, Ford and Chrysler react to tariffs on their (among others) Impalas, Edges and Pacificas. Not to mention Lexuses, Civics, and a lot more. Speaking for myself, I am these days paying extra attention to the countries of origin of my fruit and vegetables: they come from Canada (fresh, juicy Niagara peaches! Yumm!), and if not, then from Mexico, Chile, South Africa, etc.
H, I know the president admitting to negotiating in bad faith is the big story from the Bloomberg interview, but I thought this on the record quote was interesting too. ” Just to –just to finish, I think a lot of good things are going to happen, but I delayed my devaluations. Monetary, you know, on the monetary — the devaluations. My currency manipulations, and also my tariffs, for a period of a year, with China, because I wanted to get as much help as — as they could give us with respect to North Korea. That had an impact. So I delayed it.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-31/president-donald-trump-interviewed-by-bloomberg-news-transcript?srnd=premium
yeah, for sure. I’ve just written so many posts here about the yuan over the past two weeks (probably 15 of them, at least), that I wanted to hit the other high (or “low” depending on how you want to look at it) points from that interview first. So I did the WTO story, the “legal scholars” bit, the European “not good enough” excerpt, and obviously the bad faith negotiations with Canada hilarity. but yeah, I may do something on those quotes. in the mean time though: https://heisenbergreport.com/?s=yuan
I lived in the oil-rich province of Alberta for 14 years and I know what my old Canadian buddies are saying about the Trump negotiations. Even though it will hurt economically, they are ready to turn off the oil pipelines to the US, finish the pipeline to the Pacific ocean, and sell all of their oil to China. They generally like and support the US, but if pushed too hard, their attitude will be “Let the American bastards freeze.” Expect a cold, frustrating winter in parts of the east and mid-west without Canadian oil products. Trump isn’t the only one who can play hardball, although Canadians much prefer a ‘gentle’ game of hockey.