02-12-2003 21:27									#91
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And Germany lost WW1. Or did I read my history wrong?

	02-12-2003 21:36									#92
	Re: Raise tariffs on America Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi I don't rant much, but here goes. Why is it when the US initiates tariffs against Japan or China, these countries respond by raising tariffs for goods sold to America? Or in the Canadian example. The Americans currently stiff us with a 28% tariff on all softwood lumber, in order to prop up their obsolete mills and lumber industry. Why don't we start raising prices on all of our electricity, and our oil that go the US? The Americans have taken cheap and easy Canadian power and oil, IIRC, we are the largest supplier of oil to the United States, yet you never hear about Canada's contribution down south. We are like the wife that always waits while America toys with their mistresses.

Canada is part of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Now, if the province of BC (or the fed) gives lumber companies (say) $15 per stump, how is that free trade?

Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

Subsidies, and government economic intervention in general, are common place in Canada and so Canadians can't seem to get their minds around the idea that not all countries are like that. And there's nothing wrong with that, its just that if you intend to throw subsidies onto industries, don't join NAFTA....

	02-12-2003 21:42									#93
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quote: Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

Correct. The only part where we erred was in calculating the size of the tarrif according to the board the looked at the case.

	02-12-2003 21:51									#94
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Nope you didn't read your history wrong, the largest producer of steel during ww1, the US, beat them.

Today the semiconductor industry is also getting siphoned off.

add to that this:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/pres...ench030306.html

Some how the US managed to barely scrape by with protectionism for around 200 years, and some how all the fastest growing economies in the world are managing to get by with protectionism.

	02-12-2003 22:26									#95
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quote: Today the semiconductor industry is also getting siphoned off.

Mostly, only low value work is being siphoned off. The latest and greatest is staying in the US.

But you appear to be missing the point. Japan is producing the most of a low value product, so who cares? Let them do it. I would be more concerned if the US were trying to keep these businesses.

	03-12-2003 02:21									#96
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jimmycrackscorn:

quote: Now, if the province of BC (or the fed) gives lumber companies (say) $15 per stump, how is that free trade? Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

So the US does not subsidise their own timber industry? If they applied the same standards they insist of Canadians, they would quickly go out of business.

Secondly, the provincial government's stumpage is not a subsidy, but a method of financing Government coffers. The companies, in order to remain in business need to pay a fee to use crown land, that far outstrips any stumpage payment.

Often, the producers in the Interior pay a far higher fee than those on the coast as they can produce lumber much more cheaply. In essence you have one section subsidising the other, rather than the provincial government.

When the US went to WTO arguing unfair subsidies, the WTO found nothing wrong, and insisted that the Americans repay the money taken through tarriffs.

Finally, the American lumber producers are behind the times. They cannot produce as much lumber as their respective Canadian mills. My dad stays in business upgrading the American mills, who are amazed at the increase in production obtained by the same upgrades made 10 years ago in Canada.

	03-12-2003 03:16									#97
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i've kinda impossed my own tariff that will cease once the current thinking behind the present(and any following) administration changes.
I check all my current purchases, if its from America it stays on the shelf. This in the long run is the only kind of thing i feel will make a difference to any country that appears to abuse its power and operates on the free market. Its a drop in the ocean, but enough drops can make a difference.
I feel that most nations will be too intimidated to stand up to uncle sam with tariffs etc, but the people not buying the goods has to have some effect.
Maybe its a bit idealistic, and in the scheme of things seems a pretty pathetic protest,but i feel better for it

	03-12-2003 03:45									#98
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Correct. The only part where we erred was in calculating the size of the tarrif according to the board the looked at the case.

Has the case been decided yet? I used to think most of the lumber issue was still pending...

	03-12-2003 05:11									#99
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Let's see if I can find the WTO case.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/05/27/wto_ruling030527

OTTAWA - The World Trade Organization has ruled in favour of Canada in its softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

The preliminary ruling, which is not binding, was released to the federal government Tuesday.

"Yet again, it appears that the U.S. is being told that its attempts to prove our softwood industry is subsidized are flawed," International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said in a news release.


RELATED STORY: WTO to rule today on U.S. lumber tariffs

A final report on the dispute is expected in July.
The crux of the dispute is an American claim that Canada's system of charging low "stumpage" fees – the fees lumber companies pay to the government for the right to cut trees on Crown-owned land – amounted to a subsidy.

The current dispute was triggered in April 2001 when the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) launched an investigation of Canadian softwood lumber. It was the fourth such investigation in the past 20 years.

In August 2001, the DOC imposed a countervailing duty of 19.31 per cent on softwood lumber imports from Canada. Canada sells approximately $10 billion worth of lumber each year to the U.S.

That duty was later reduced to 18.79 per cent.

Canada's challenge to the WTO was launched in October after other efforts to resolve the dispute were unsuccessful.

The dispute is estimated to have cost Canadian lumber producers up to $1.5 billion in duties and cost thousands of jobs. Some sawmills closed.

It might not be over yet, either. Washington can appeal the WTO ruling, a process that some experts say could take another six to eight months.

The North American Free Trade Agreement dispute resolution body is to rule on it in July. That group's ruling would be binding

	03-12-2003 05:15									#100
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Text of NAFTA ruling which reaffirms the WTO ruling.

http://www.truckloggers.com/breaking_news.shtml


It's a PDF file.

	03-12-2003 05:19									#101
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Oh, and yes NAFTA is in danger. There are people in Canada who want us out of it.

There is also a US Communist Party. It doesn't make me think we're in danger of a Red revolution

	03-12-2003 05:36									#102
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"If the President does it, it isn't illegal" - Richard Nixon

Take a look at www.americancetury.org the neocons say they have the right to do whatever they want in the name of "democracy".

Just want you nonAmericans to realize there are many Americans fighting these bastards tooth and nail.

	03-12-2003 05:38									#103
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There is zero government subsidy of lumber, or wheat, in Canada.

What Ben posted mentions it, but here it is boiled down.

In BC almost all of the forested land is government owned. Lumber companies pay the government for licenses to harvest certain pieces of land, and then they pay an additional fee per tree they cut. That additional fee is called stumpage. It is paid by the producers to the government, not the other way around. It is the royalty to the people who own the trees for taking them.

Now, what value the people of BC place on their trees, and how much they charge lumber companies for them, seems to me not to be in any way a subsidy. How you get a subsidy out of such a situation baffles me, but apparently the brain trust in Washington can delude itself. It is good they cannot delude anyone else.

	03-12-2003 13:38									#104
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Well allowing the use of public property for below market price is a subsidy. The problem is whether the fees really are too low.

If it is one, as it is not export-related, it is not a forbidden, just an actionable subsidy under WTO law, and how the US wants to meet the standard of proof there is a mystery to me...

"How you get a subsidy out of such a situation baffles me, but apparently the brain trust in Washington can delude itself."

Well it's possible, just barely a problem under WTO law. They're living in lala land. The arguments they presented in the FSC case were so hilarious, I thought they are joking. But they really believe in the stuff. It's the "think" tank disease, I suppose....

	03-12-2003 14:41									#105
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They've tried this 4 times now. Anytime it has gotten near a tribunal we have won or an agreement is struck. Yet they come back again the next time.

Somehow, with union rates being paid to people in BC, rights to leases being paid for in advance, stumpage being charged, and costs of reforestation being born wholly by the lumber companies in Canada I doubt they have an unfair advantage.

Besides, assume that they are charged low stumpage. That might be because there is so much of BC, and so many trees, that the people of BC might want to encourage activity in that sector. What is the difference between cheap trees in BC, cheap labour in Mexico, or dense populations supporting greater manufacturing effeciency in the East of the US? That's right, each has an advantage owing to local circumstances.

The playing field is never totally equal in any given field. Some areas will have certain advantages over others elsewhere, but we signed a treaty saying that we would trade freely with each other regardless. It would simply be nice if the US elephant would stop crying about the mighty Canadian mouse, and honour this agreement. One starts to question the value of agreements with parties that never abide by them in good faith.

	03-12-2003 19:58									#106
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quote: or dense populations supporting greater manufacturing effeciency in the East of the US

???

	03-12-2003 20:06									#107
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Ben, et al., my first reaction to your post is that we should convince the US administration to stop its protectionist activities with the THREAT of retaliation. However, Bush seems reluctant to back off on the steel tarriffs, for example, even in the face of a WTO judgment against the US.

Under these circumstances, I would normally seek to replace the president with a free trader. However, Bill Clinton is not running this time and all the Democrat candidates who are, except, perhaps, for Lieberman, are even more protectionist than Bush.

It looks like we are in for a very bumpy ride trade wise for the next few years.

	03-12-2003 22:22									#108
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A trade war is in the cards, bet on it. The congressional guys are even more against free trade(depending on how the economy is doing then), and they get to vote on all of that right before the election.

	03-12-2003 22:25									#109
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quote: However, Bush seems reluctant to back off on the steel tarriffs, for example, even in the face of a WTO judgment against the US.

He's backing off. Which is why I agree that some countries should at least threaten to raise tariffs on the US.

	03-12-2003 22:41									#110
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Tariffs are a nations way to barter and control national production levels. Raising tarrifs on the US will require us to also raise tariffs on specific industries. That will be more detremental to the rest of the world than it would be to the US, especially seeing as how many nations do rely on us to feed them... Ag is king baby...

It may force the US into a more isolationalist stance as well. No food to China and NK to keep them hating us, no food to Japan to keep them making our cars, no economic support to 3rd world nations to keep their leaders buying new automobiles, no military aid to the Eastern block to keep the Russians and other militant factions from causing world war 3, no military aid to SK to keep them an independent country, no aid...

If anything the US should raise tariffs on certain industries for specific countries.

	03-12-2003 22:46									#111
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quote: Raising tarrifs on the US will require us to also raise tariffs on specific industries. That will be more detremental to the rest of the world than it would be to the US

I thought we had established that this is in fact more harmful to the US than the rest of the world and that's precisely why we don't do it with any regularity.

	03-12-2003 22:49									#112
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quote: I thought we had established that this is in fact more harmful to the US

I didn't read the whole thread. I scan it and get back to ya.

	03-12-2003 22:54									#113
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Now that I reread what you said, perhaps I misunderstood. If countries raise tariffs on the US goods and services, that only hurts their own people. That's regardless of whether or not the US returns the favor of a tariff. But that argument is counterintuitive, so sometimes it might be useful for the US to return the favor in order to accentuate the fact that it's no good for their people.

	03-12-2003 23:34									#114
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My opinion is even more jostled having read this thread. Though I think adjusting tariffs based on agression or for the sake of retaliation is a very silly and dangerous notion to toy with.

How I see it---

Exporting Nation:

Lower Tariffs -> Develop Industry, Increase Exports, Increase Local Competition = Good For local Economy (which can benefit long term foreign economy)

Raise Tariffs -> Consoldate Insdustry, Decrease Exorts, Decrease Local Competition = Good For foreign Economy (which can benefit long term local economy)

Thus,

"out-of-control" industry (i.e. has begun monoploizing, lacks recent development) then raise tariffs to encourage foreign competition: Semiconductor Industry.

emerging or "suffering" industry then lower tariffs to encourage local competition to increase competitive edge on the foreign market: Russian Caviar is a good example of the failure to do such.

***-for-tat, negotiations between countries should be based on economic factors and not on a "Buy My Lumber you big dumb basterd!" attitude. Since, it all comes down to whether a country wants to be dependent on themselves or someone else for the given good. If Canada were smart they would worry less about lumber and more about manufacturing, specifically in the pharmeceutical arena. Many pharma companies are looking around to place plants, the industry is about to boom, and US legislation is making the demand for Canadian drugs to increase.

	04-12-2003 00:19									#115
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Those drugs aren't Canadian drugs. They are drugs made here, shipped to canada, then reimported to the US. Canada does some price control and other things that while outwardly appealing, are not a good thing.

	04-12-2003 04:53									#116
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither They've tried this 4 times now. Anytime it has gotten near a tribunal we have won or an agreement is struck. Yet they come back again the next time.

Because they live in lala-land.

"That might be because there is so much of BC, and so many trees, that the people of BC might want to encourage activity in that sector."

That would be factored into the market price. But again, from the banana dispute (very partial US virctory) to the FSC case, the US positions are based on corrupt politics, not on law in any sense.

Competitive advantages that some areas have are nevre a WTO problem, no matter how much some politicians want to make them that.

The political reality behind the WTO: The US and the EU agreed on some rules because both can hurt the other as much as the other way round. Unfortunately both have their protectionist leanings, and unless you are the 10 trillion $ size, you can get screwed if the US or the EU decide to violate the rules.

	04-12-2003 05:47									#117
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Oh, so agreements aren't worth signing with either the US or the EU?

	04-12-2003 06:26									#118
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quote: Under these circumstances, I would normally seek to replace the president with a free trader.

Agreed. If they dems really wanted to beat Bush, this is the tack they would take. It worked for Clinton, and it would work against Bush.

Hersh:

So might makes right? The US will hurt itself, as willl the EU if they take this stance.

	04-12-2003 07:26									#119
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Really, we should just turn the gas off come January. We should leave it off till they promise to abide by the treaty. It's that simple.

	04-12-2003 22:32									#120
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Bush Drops Steel Tariffs

Happy now