Way Too Meek On US Trade

Good post. Dobbin is right on in essentially saying that Canada can use China as leverage in dealing with the US over issues like softwood lumber and beef.

However, what are the implications under NAFTA and the WTO of having a STATE-OWNED company investing internationally? Nobody seems to be examining this in-depth.

A Chinese government owned corporation is backed by military force, and the dynamic of dealing with them is different, I would argue than dealing with Halliburton/KBR or Bechtel. Sure, the case can be made that these corporations are backed by the visible fist of the US military, but we run the risk of turning Alberta into Oilbertastan. Another banana republic getting thumped by two superpowers over oil.

China is everywhere the US is in terms of oil. Even where they are no. China is moving into venezuela and exchanging military know-how for oil. Remember that Chinese Embassy bombing by US forces over in Slobodan's neck of the woods? That was a message to them to stop funding muslim extremists. In otherwords, China was involved in that conflict behind the scenes.

Keep China out of mining and the Tar sands and get the Bank of Canada to do some investing. Let the people of Canada own something.

Yes, way too meek on US trade! Time to shut off the oil and natural gas flow to the south!

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Dave Ruston

What is business and trade, other than leveraging one party against another, in order to secure the best prices and terms? Mr. Martin is (I have been told) a businessman. Our business 'leaders' (they keep telling us that!) are business people (at least the ones who aren't sucking at the government tit), and they should know that.

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RickW

When pigs fly.

Clean up your disease-ridden cattle while you're at it.

"Good post. Dobbin is right on in essentially saying that Canada can use China as leverage in dealing with the US over issues like softwood lumber and beef."

Yes, do this. Play hard ball. Americans will respect that. Just don't be petulant and emotional about it. And don't make it about ideology or "values". It's business.

Well then, its time to put the real PIGS on a rocket and get them out of here!

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Dave Ruston

You are right that dealing with a Chinese government corporation is different but in the end both are equally backed by their respective militaries. I'm sure that the people of countries like Grenada, Panama, and Nicaragua would agree with me, as American corporations were heavily invested in all of these countries and when each tried to go its own way (Grenada and Nicaragua conducting totally above board and internationally monitored elections) they were invaded directly or indirectly by the US. Of course there is Iraq as well which, as is clearly brought out in Linda McQuaig's book "It's The Crude Dude", was attacked in large measure as a response to Saddam Hussein's moves to have European companies develop his oil fields.

How they are different, though, is mostly in that the Chinese government owned corporation has an inordinate amount of cash, being the virtually the only corporation in China, and therefore is in an unnatural position to buy up pretty much any company they set their sights on and for this reason should be prevented from doing so. The other way they are different is that I could well-imagine them buying up mining companies, oil companies, etc. with the intention of sending all of the exports from these to China, likely without any value added to them thereby losing many jobs that go along with these resource industries.

If NAFTA is any indication of the level of confidence that our government has in our position when discussing trade with other countries, however, I believe we are in deep shit. We unnecessarily gave everything away in NAFTA because our politicians believed we needed the US but that the US had no use for us (this, of course, applies to the boneheaded backbenchers who blindly went along with Mulroney and his mob and not to those who actually make policy as I believe they had very different motives for selling out our country to the US).

Considering how intertwined the US and Canadian cattle and feed markets are it is a little presumptuous for you to think that there are no diseased cattle in the US. It is not a coincidence that Alberta Premier Ralph Klein made the comment that the rancher in Alberta with the first BSE cow should have "shot, shoveled, and shut-up" after visiting a US cattle producing state. It means that he heard this from cattlemen in the US and that this is common practice there. I have also seen a Fifth Estate documentary that found that people in the US who are bringing diseased cattle to the attention of authorities are being ignored.