Why Trump’s threats could give Canada a trade advantage it never sought: Don Pittis – June 13, 2018
If you want to read the article written by Don Pittis on the CBC click the link below:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fed-rates-houses-trade-1.4701260
Now, I’ve gone on record for saying that Trump’s tariffs could backfire and in time will backfire, but when I talk about Canada in all of this, the problem is domestic debt in Canada and real inflation that comes with a rising U.S dollar. If the U.S dollar goes up at least 25% of all imports in Canada go up, not including the tit-for-tat tariffs Trudeau claims he will add July 1st, 2018.
On the flip side, the U.S will only feel a 2% threat from Canada, the remainder of rising prices felt in the United States will come from U.S companies raising their prices on consumers. But I have to add and this is what’s going overlooked here is that Trump lowered regulations, he lowered taxes and even without tariffs he made the Canadian economy very uncompetitive vs. the United States.
I’m in Ontario and I’m watching business after business closes their doors. Now, these are small businesses, the large retailers in Canada are beginning to raise their prices. Ontario has a problem Kathleen Wynne created called higher minimum wages, there’s no cure to this problem, the cost to start a manufacturing business has quickly and permanently gone up, the Liberals on the federal level have also increased entitlement spending and their intentionally running a deficit.
Now if these events didn’t happen sure, I’d to a degree, agree with Don Pittis but the reality in Canada has changed and in my view, if I were Trudeau I would do nothing! Nothing Trudeau does from now on is going to change Canada’s view of him. If Trudeau wins again, he’ll win because Canadians still believe in big government, if he loses it’s because Canadians are waking up to the disasters of higher taxes, massive regulations, and entitled Government workers.
So for me, what Trudeau should have done is matched Trump with regulations lowered taxes and focused on issues that matter to him. Because the bottom line now is that this is a waiting game and if it’s a waiting game America has the advantage if you play the tit-for-tat tariff game. Like I’ve been saying for month’s Canadian businesses don’t have to stay in Canada, there’s nothing forcing them to remain here. So if their products are being charged a tariff and their main buyers are American’s those Canadian companies might simply move to America.
Interesting times ahead.