GHY Tradelines

(Jim Stanford – Globe & Mail)

As soon as it won its coveted majority, the Harper government put the pedal to the metal on the trade front, with a stampede of new free-trade deals. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade currently lists 18 different deals in play, ranging from puny (Panama and Jordan) to gargantuan (Europe, Japan and India).

Anyone who stands in the way of this juggernaut clearly must oppose trade in general. At least that’s how the Conservatives portray the issue, attempting to brand its New Democratic opponents as economically illiterate dinosaurs.

There’s a big difference, however, between signing free-trade pacts and actually doing something about trade. Canada’s trade performance deteriorated badly over the past decade. The quantity of goods and services shipped abroad is seven percentage points lower than when the Harper government took office, lower even than back in 2000. And what we do export increasingly consists of raw resources (especially oil). Our once-impressive trade surplus has melted into deficit. Despite accelerating petroleum sales, we’re running up international red ink at the rate of 3 per cent of GDP per year. Read more here.
 

(Livio Di Matteo – Winnipeg Free Press)

Canada is negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union. The recent stirrings of public debate over what the CETA might mean for municipal public procurement in Canada, or drug prices, brings back memories of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of the 1980s. [...]

Will the CETA have an impact on Canada’s economy? The answer is yes, but the effects should be largely positive. One can expect that, like the FTA, there will be economic adjustment that generates winners and losers, but that over the long term, there will be economic growth and employment generated from diversifying our trade. Moreover, reducing our dependence on the U.S. market will actually create greater economic stability for our economy. Read more here.
 

(AP/CBC)

China’s government on Friday rejected a U.S. antidumping ruling against its makers of solar power equipment and Chinese manufacturers warned possible higher tariffs might hurt efforts to promote clean energy.

The conflict has worsened U.S.-Chinese trade tensions. The two governments have pledged to cooperate in developing renewable energy but accuse each other of violating free-trade pledges by subsidizing their own manufacturers.

“The U.S. ruling is unfair, and the Chinese side expresses its extreme dissatisfaction,” said a Commerce Ministry spokesman, Shen Danyang, in a statement. Read more here.

Related: Canadian Solar CEO: Disappointed By US Anti-Dumping Tariff (WSJ)
 

(Lee-Anne Goodman – The Canadian Press)

Leaders of the Group of Eight countries focused their attention on the European fiscal crisis on Saturday, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper arguing there are ways to resurrect teetering economies that involve neither devastating austerity measures nor massive stimulus spending.

“It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation; trade, for example, is a way to cultivate growth,” a senior Canadian government official said at the G8 summit, being held for the first time at this lush, leafy presidential retreat tucked away in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains.

“Free trade deals create jobs and stimulate growth and don’t involve government spending a lot of money.” Read more here.

Related:

Harper to Eurozone: Stimulus Alone Won’t Save You (Toronto Sun)
Obama Touts ‘Emerging Consensus’ on Reviving Europe’s Economy (Globe & Mail)
 

(Randy Boswell – Postmedia News)

A U.S. senator has made it his mission to save country music in Canada this summer from nitpicking, guitar-snatching U.S. government agents who might try to enforce a “confusing” American law that targets products made of wood from endangered tree species around the world.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander is the senior federal lawmaker from Tennessee – its capital, Nashville, far better known as Music City and for its Grand Ole Opry than for being home to the state legislature. […]

“I don’t want the musicians from Nashville who are flying to Canada to perform this summer to worry about the government seizing their guitars,” Alexander said in a statement issued Friday, adding that he is working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon to address the “unintended” consequences of new U.S. legislation the two of them co-sponsored in 2008. Read more here.
 

(Globe & Mail Editorial)

A defeat of the United States at the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, in which the U.S. was found to have discriminated against Mexican tuna fishermen, is an example of a characteristic failure by American trade authorities to negotiate such disputes – which is what the WTO procedure was designed to encourage – even with one of its two NAFTA partners.

Consequently, the decision is favourable to both Mexico and Canada. It is a less happy result for dolphins. Importers of Mexican tuna have not been allowed to label their products as “dolphin safe.” In the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, dolphins are in the habit of swimming in close proximity to tuna, and when Mexican fishermen use purse seine nets to catch tuna, they often catch dolphins, too. But the WTO found that other tuna-fishing methods used in other areas of the world’s oceans may be comparably dangerous for dolphins.

Predictably, some economic libertarians are pleased by the WTO decision, while environmentalists and economic nationalists are outraged. Read more here.