rookiepilot wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2019 4:09 pm
We have a fearless leader - for now anyway -- who expresses admiration for communist china and takes cheap shots at our historical best friends every chance he gets.
Which leader are you talking about here? Unfortunately it describes both Trump and Trudeau.
At the end of the day, who our leader is doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter if Harper was still in office. What does matter to us is that whenever there's a Republican in the White House, its more prominent that they seek to score political points at home by using Canada as a scapegoat for poor practices on their own side. Not that the Democrats don't do that too, the Republicans just seem to be more aggressive about it. Softwood lumber, Dairy producers, Oil, Beef, whatever is easiest depending on where they need votes. Unfortunately for us, a lot of Red votes are in swing districts along our border.
Cheese for instance. Whatever you think of Canada's dairy market and system, the fact of the matter is that its friggin' small potatoes. People forget how few people live here when it comes to market shares, and at the end of the day we don't have a lot of pull. There's more people in California than there is in Canada. So does the U.S. starting a fight with us really help their dairy farmers at the end of the day? No. IF they were to increase American exports in Dairy to Canada by 300% it would mean an increase in less than 1% in revenues for Wisconsin producers. It would be smarter to convince Californians to buy more cheese. But it sounds good in a presidential election to American voters that you're fighting for them.
TBH, what Canadians need to do, is convince Americans on the whole, we're good for business. Which for the most part we are. They get cheap stuff from us, and its secure. We also buy tons of stuff from them, and the better we're doing, the more stuff we buy.
Now if you think Trump's policies are all clever, I know they're not. Oddly his election had a direct impact in my personal business, since one of the first things he did when getting into office was cancel or review all government contracts with foreign businesses, to which I was told was then paid a fee to us, to which we then re-submitted a proposal that was then approved by DoE - for more money. Win for me, I get more work and paid more. Maybe wasn't as great of a deal for the American taxpayer. But sounded good right? Maybe it helped him get more votes.
I'm not sure what's more depressing: That everyone has a price, or how low the price always is.