First off Mike...great song catchy song...thanks for posting it. I I expect if it goes viral....what an ear worm it is....SUMO will be on a hit list
Marty, careful, you made a point of saying you wanted to engage in civil political discouse and name callling is not even just another point of view
And Marty a big thank you for coming clean on how your TDS clouds your judgement including your diagnosis of our alleged TDS.
You blind devotion as in Trump Devotion Syndrome is shown by how little you know of tariffs yet how loudly you proclaim their justified use here
I get his tough on the border get rid of the scum activity has you on board everywhere else ...but your "we only want fair trade" is not always tariffs and like treating kids, fair is not always equal.
Then you get the composition of trade...goods....many types....many different measures categories of activity.....comparative advantages...investments in our country
Your primary official beefs with us as I understand it is
1) our supply management system that is management by marketing boards...set up to ensure our producers are paid fairly.
2) our caps on your fresh produce
3) our French language laws.
#3 is not negotiable if you want acces to the Canadian market as we are officially bilingual. I explained in my earlier counter to Mr Trumps 51st state talk that any common President be trilingual, English French and Spanish and be encouraged to learn Dutch...along with a few important other terms ...in recognition of the composition of the combined country and culture...you know, diversity, equity and inclusion.
2) We import from everywhere and I just totally enjoyed a bag of Costco Morrocan grapefruit. I cut them up and threw them together in a bowl and enjoyed the sweetness hell out of them and poured the juice into a glass.
My best memory of grapefruit was a dozen yellow Texan grapefruit that to me will never be surpassed. Kudos to Texas. Trade between us I know nothing about.
Coming in almost 100% of our fresh fruits and vegetables and relateds goes though the Ontario Food Terminal close by where I live US trucking coming in would use their resident distribution system into Ontario and likely further. Gotta think there are similar distribution hubs across Canada that your fresh farm produce can truck and fly into.
1) Our marketing boards where set up decades ago to manage supply to market among a wide number of farmers so that buyers of their land and animals and their products have to pay fair prices for what they as producers provide.
A producer controlled one point of purchase ensured all farmers could make a decent living. Culturally engrained into our farming history and tradition. That is a harder nut to crack because these llowing a thriving rural community across Canada. Just for good measure, the loss of egg production in the USA simply could not have happened here because of our system's inability to allow the existence of such concentrated egg producing facilities as fell victim in the US bird flu.
Tariffs and duties and excise taxes and various fees and "no fee" (labeling, language, packaging, etc) exist between us now , I am sure we can make trade between us better, but they are not and do not appear to be a big issue between us
Oh we are also officially Metric, though we go fuzzy there in practice. Sometimes there's reasons like there are 473ml in a US pint so that is how our beer is sold here. In 473ml cans
German and European imports on the other hand are a 127 ml more at a stout 500ml. Some of them are getting smarter and downsizing but charging the same...
Not surprisingly Paul Rand from Kentucky has decided to speak up for Canada and Kentucky Bourbon which is still nowhere to be seen on Canadian shelves. Interestingly enough booze is under Provincial control so that means every province has pulled US booze off our shelves. He has added his voice to US states that really heavily on trade with Canada. Seems they are even going so far as to question his authority to use those emergency powers based on lies to sign them into law
Word is Canada will be relatively better off after Trump's big announcement day that will hit countries with counter tariffs
While Lutnick does Lutnick, Rubio must be fretting about the Chinese damper put on the sale of the Panama ports to the Black Rock led consortium. All nice and legal in Hong Kong courts.
At stake is port facilities (not the only ones) at either end of the Panama Canal and others near the Suez.
Don't know if you read Clavell but his Asian Saga (magnificient reading) covered a generational Struan family saga trading house\comglomerate like Hutchinsom Whampoa...British Chinese history in Hong Kong
It will end up a barganing chip somehow in some bigger picture like it has to.
Had lunch with a tax client today and we were talking about this and he informed me that there seems to be some Chimese interest in a Canada across Nicaragua....bit of research shows past talks and failures through time but then more recent interest from Chinese sources. Maybe topography makes sense and they dig a huge trench before letting the water into an engineered canal from what appears to be plausible Atlantic and Pacific ports. Vision and means...
Kinda like the jump on the AI. Ok, take Panama. We'll just build a newer better one that better integrates with our Belt and Road initiative.
Russia like I said is "keep an eye on the ports"
Waiting with bated breath for tomorrow
