When you have a large common market, there’s less need to look elsewhere for substitute goods. It’s a strong point for the market.
CETA is a great move, but let’s face it—many goods just aren’t worth the transportation costs when you have plenty of alternatives within the common market. So, it makes sense that the EU has a trade surplus with us, so good on them. :)
Don’t these petitions get dropped when an election is called? Unlikely that it’ll ever actually hit the floor.
It can technically be used to extend your stay in Palau long enough to establish tax residency since it would allow you to stay in Palau for longer than 183 days a year. Not unusual for people sitting on big crypto stashes to move abroad or buy citizenships in order to cash out their crypto without capital gains tax (or at least that’s how it goes - I imagine the IRS doesn’t go down that easily).
The whole point of this card is basically to bypass KYC requirements for crypto exchanges that don’t allow US customers. They are very explicit about this in their marketing.
This has been the playbook from day one—Trump throws out an outrageous statement, his lackeys rush to ‘clarify’, ‘negotiate’ or downplay it, and then, surprise, he meant exactly what he said.
The real problem is the constant gaslighting: pretending he’s just posturing when, in reality, he’s dead set on pushing his reckless, authoritarian agenda. At this point, anyone still treating him like a rational actor is either delusional or complicit. No rational actor would casually equate ethnic cleansing to a real estate transaction, or try and take over a sovereign state as though it was a ruthless corporate takeover.
There is no future in negotiating with the US - the only way out of this mess is to do what we should’ve been doing for the past 30 years - diversify our supply chains, build resilient trading relationships and establish the infrastructure to insulate ourselves from the whims of volatile US policymakers - even if that means cozying up to global partners with historical animosity.
Canadian tariffs are targeted in a number of ways. One of the ways is targeting American goods that have Canadian alternatives. So the goal is to make American products less attractive by making them more expensive, damaging the US economy while bolstering our own.
I feel like it’s often missed that it isn’t a binary Buy US/Buy Canada dilemma. Most goods have substitutes - there are other countries that can produce most consumer goods. It’s only when you start getting into high-value-added goods like turbines, flash memory, missiles and planes that there’s difficulties in import substitution. A 25% retaliatory tariff doesn’t mean your canned tomatoes are definitely going up by 25%, but you’ll likely start seeing Mexican, Peruvian, etc. canned tomatoes on Canadian shelves that weren’t there before.
And while patriotism is great and all, buying goods from other countries that we don’t have strong established trading ties with is a good way to make the case for closer bilateral cooperation and even future free trade agreements that exceed most-favoured nation benefits conferred by the WTO. When countries start building export-driven industries that give dignity and economic self-sufficiency for their citizens, that’s a future tiger worthy of negotiating a free trade agreement with.
I’m doubtful full membership will ever happen, and even an EEA Norway-style agreement where we adopt 75% of the EU’s laws without representation but keep our fishing and agricultural policies (pre-requisites for the Atlantic and Prairie Provinces to agree), would take decades to be negotiated, signed and ratified with all the dysfunctional, proportional representational governments in Europe right now.
There’s been discussions about “associate membership” in the EU to bypass the European-ness requirement, but I don’t think that’s gotten any traction.
I would be grateful for any kind of free movement agreement that gains traction right now, even with CARICOM or MERCOSUR.
The daily unlock code thing is a myth. The grain of truth is that the F-35 relies heavily on mission data files (MDFs), which are region-specific software packages that enable the jet to recognize threats, navigate, and employ weapons, and we depend on the US being willing to supply those updates voluntarily for our fighter jets to be useful.