scudrunner wrote:

Canada needs to learn to diversify our customer base for all our exports. We are "bigly" dependent on the USA. With that said, it looks like Trump took a bag of cash from the lumber lobby in the swamp to kick off Blame Canada. What happened to Mexico? Too complex? Is North Korea not being the bogey man he hoped for?

Just as the yanks can set their industry up how they like. Canada can do the same up here. At the heart of the matter is most Canadian timber is logged on "crown land" and the logging companies pay a stumpage fee to the government as oppose to the USA with its private forests.

Good to know its business as usual in the swamp.

TWA772LR wrote:

Canada has had that absolute advantage in maple syrup and hockey sticks for too long!

StarAC17 wrote:

scudrunner wrote:

Canada needs to learn to diversify our customer base for all our exports. We are "bigly" dependent on the USA. With that said, it looks like Trump took a bag of cash from the lumber lobby in the swamp to kick off Blame Canada. What happened to Mexico? Too complex? Is North Korea not being the bogey man he hoped for?

Just as the yanks can set their industry up how they like. Canada can do the same up here. At the heart of the matter is most Canadian timber is logged on "crown land" and the logging companies pay a stumpage fee to the government as oppose to the USA with its private forests.

Good to know its business as usual in the swamp.

Yes we do and we have a huge opportunity as we have a Free Trade Agreement with Europe and are not combative with Asia.

photopilot wrote:

Oh, and as the USA is not self-sufficient in softwood lumber and requires about 30% of it's national supply to be imported, what is really going to happen is that prices for American consumers will rise by at least 20% and that will also affect American home prices. So the pressure is on both sides.

scudrunner wrote:

Trumps also complaining about dairy products.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/globe-editorial-dear-donald-trump-please-milk-canadas-sacred-dairy-cow/article34785387/

Sounds like Trumps on to something with the milk though.

This editorial sums it all up for me.

TWA772LR wrote:

Canada has had that absolute advantage in maple syrup and hockey sticks for too long!

JJJ wrote:

StarAC17 wrote:

scudrunner wrote:

Canada needs to learn to diversify our customer base for all our exports. We are "bigly" dependent on the USA. With that said, it looks like Trump took a bag of cash from the lumber lobby in the swamp to kick off Blame Canada. What happened to Mexico? Too complex? Is North Korea not being the bogey man he hoped for?

Just as the yanks can set their industry up how they like. Canada can do the same up here. At the heart of the matter is most Canadian timber is logged on "crown land" and the logging companies pay a stumpage fee to the government as oppose to the USA with its private forests.

Good to know its business as usual in the swamp.

Yes we do and we have a huge opportunity as we have a Free Trade Agreement with Europe and are not combative with Asia.

Still you can't beat geography. For many products the US will always be their most important market if only because logistics are so much easier.

StarAC17 wrote:

JJJ wrote:

StarAC17 wrote:

This is especially true when we have a loose cannon that might rip up NAFTA within days or so he says.

Government sources told Reuters they increasingly expect the Trump administration to announce its exit from NAFTA.
Reuters said the two sources expect the U.S. to pull out around the time negotiators meet in January for the final round of talks to modernize the treaty.

Canada has launched a wide-ranging trade dispute against the United States, challenging Washington's use of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties, according to a World Trade Organization filing dated Dec. 20 and published Wednesday. Canada appeared to be mounting a case on behalf of the rest of the world, since it cited almost 200 examples of alleged U.S. wrongdoing, almost all of them concerning other trading partners, such as China, India, Brazil and the European Union.

The 32-page complaint homed in on technical details of the U.S. trade rulebook, ranging from the U.S. treatment of export controls to the use of retroactive duties and split decisions by the six-member U.S. International Trade Commission.

U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer issued a rebuttal calling Canada's case an "ill-advised attack on the U.S. trade remedies system."

"Canada's claims are unfounded and could only lower U.S. confidence that Canada is committed to mutually beneficial trade," Lighthizer said in a statement. "Canada is acting against its own workers' and businesses' interests. Even if Canada succeeded on these groundless claims, other countries would primarily benefit, not Canada," he said.

Under WTO rules, the United States has 60 days to try to settle the complaint, or Canada, which sends 75 per cent of its exports to the United States, could ask the WTO to adjudicate.

Never mind $35 a barrel, Canada's oil is selling for closer to $20. As oil crashes through $35 in New York today, Alberta, which produces the world's cheapest oil at the highest cost, is already living with the reality of much lower prices