NAFTA fight heating up

The Canadian government is getting antsy over the way rulings have been ignored in the softwood lumber dispute.
Ottawa is threatening sanctions and wants their money back.

This is becoming a 'flashpoint' and is sure to heat up over the coming weeks.

www.newswire.ca...

Any thoughts besides nuking Canada?



[edit on 12-8-2005 by masqua]

[edit on 12-8-2005 by masqua]

What a surprise!!! The US doesn't want to abide by NAFTA. Colour me shocked...[/sarcasm]

Another link about reaction up here, because I'm pretty sure this isn't hitting the news south of the border.

Federal and provincial officials accused the United States of reneging on the 11-year-old North American free-trade agreement, with Ottawa renewing threats to slap billions of dollars of sanctions on American goods if Washington doesn't recant.

One senior Canadian government official called the U.S. dismissal of the NAFTA ruling a "slap in the face."

Another top-ranked federal official said Ottawa is prepared to retaliate if the United States repudiates NAFTA. "Those rules cannot be flouted and they cannot be ignored," the official said. "If [the United States] ..... can't see fit to recognize the rule of law, to honour the agreement that it, itself, established, and to work toward a deal that is fair to all, they should not expect this federal government to take that sitting down."

...snip...

Under trade rules, if Washington can't prove Canadian softwood lumber poses at least a threat of injury to U.S. producers, it is obliged to scrap the duties on imports of Canadian lumber.

Wednesday's ruling should have forced an immediate end to the dispute.

But the United States says that the NAFTA ruling is inconsequential and that it has no intention of scrapping duties on Canadian softwood that exceed 20 per cent for some companies today, or refunding the $5-billion in levies collected since 2002.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Gee thanks Mr. Mulroney. I'm really glad we signed that deal.

lol Whoever wasn't expecting the US response to the NAFTA ruling is severly naive. The US Ambassador even had the gaul to say they want a negotiated settlement still. IT'S been settled already! The Ruling settles it and if the US doesn't abide by it then we should pull out of NAFTA.

American Hypocrits.

[edit on 12-8-2005 by sardion2000]

Since this thread is all but dead (thanks, Amuk), I may as well toss in some really boring reading material...the nuts and bolts of the entire process of how NAFTA is giving Canada the fits. For those interested, there's lots of material.

www.nafta-sec-alena.org...

This site is official...so I can't see any flaming happening outa this.

cheers

We've seen the Canadian Prime minister got to New York and emphatically make his stance on this issue clear. Good for him! I certainly liked his $1000 a house cost savings that are being held back by the tariffs issue.

Now, it seems, our country is in for a visit from Condi next week.

Could it be we're actually not being ignored any longer because we wouldn't join in on the Ballistic Missile defence plan?

Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew and Mrs. Rice will discuss" a wide range of bilateral, hemispheric and global issues in which Canada and the U.S. share common interests.

Hmmm...I wonder if our cosying up to China lately has a part in this visit? I know a lot of 'Drawers of Water' and 'Hewers of Wood' were buying copies of Chinese / English dictionaries lately.

The way the Chinese are licking their chops over the Alberta Tar Sands could also be playing a part. They fully intend on financing a pipeline from Alberta to the west coast.

Should get interesting....

When is Dick Cheney supposed to come here? His trip was cancelled before because of medical conditions, but when is he actually coming?

The only thing I can find is an oldupdate on the CBC website. I truly think this is 'in the can', though, since this article dates to Aug. 20.

Too bad...I bet Mike Harris, Gordie Campbell and Ralph Klien were all salivating for this $5-10,000 a plate gala with the Fraser Institute.

Invitation only, so I guess I won't be there. (dang)

I'm sure once he's fully recuperated, the boys will have their day at the trough.

The Tar Sands certainly is getting a lot of attention, eh?

Good morning,
Are there any statistics out there (subjective as they may be) that describe the results of NAFTA in terms of number of US jobs sacrificed to Mexico, and what the replacement jobs (if any) are believed to be?

Will such data (if it exists) give a preview of upcoming further job destruction under CAFTA?

Thanks
Adonsa

A recent study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates that over 1 million manufacturing jobs in the United States and Canada have been lost as a result of NAFTA. According to the EPI report, the results for Mexico’s workforce have been equally devastating: manufacturing workers are now earning 21 percent less, salaried workers earn 25 percent less and the purchasing power of the Mexican minimum wage is now worth only half of its 1994 value.

Worker's World
Economic Policy Institute

I hope these links answer your question Adonsa.

Thanks much, Saphronia, for the Economic Policy Institute link, lots of good reference data.

NAFTA's sacked 1 million workers; but we need to look at collateral devastation - for each worker, his family (assume 4) is screwed; small business are impacted due to less customers, taxpayers get impacted, and the devastation snowballs. So, the resulting NAFTA devastation is about 4 million Americans.

Here comes CAFTA. There is no way imaginable that CAFTA can create more jobs than it will destroy. No way. Mathematical impossibility. I suppose Dept of Labor will count flipping hamburgers at McDonalds as replacement jobs. Let's attempt a rudamentary layout of the figures.

DEVASTATION LAYDOWN (please correct my figures):
NAFTA - 1 million
CAFTA - To be determined
Outsourcing to Communist China (Manufacturing) - ??? (Anybody know?)
Off-shoring to India* - Believed to be 1.6 million, forcasted to go to 8 - 10 million by 2010
H-1B Visa Holders - 350,000+ (is this correct?)
H-1B Visa Holders who forgot to go home - Est. 500,000
L-1 Visa Holders - ?
L-1 Visa holders who forgot to go home - ?
Illegal Aliens - 11 million, numbers increasing by 1 million per year.

*The entire US Info Tech profession will then be eliminated almost twice over.
There's an article in one of the Hindu economic publications that Tata is hiring an additional 10 million employees [to replace American workers].

How bad does job destruction have to get in order for elected officials to notice?

Sorry, accidently posted twice.

[edit on 11/11/05 by Adonsa]

How bad does job destruction have to get in order for elected officials to notice?

You think law makers don't know what this is doing to the worker class in this country? Ah, my friend, come with me I have much to show you!

Over the past ten or so years there as been a change in what we use to call corporate America--now known as multinationals--they are running this country even though they no longer pledge allegiance to our flag. Of course it started under Clinton, before that, but the escalation of the things we see now started in the late 90's. It took that long for NAFTA and Clinton's liberal policies toward China to really start to take effect. Many law makers will pass this off as evolution. They say the world is getting smaller and our labor force has to catch up with this tiny world. They mean, they are creating a world without borders or protection from your government. A world where labor is cheap because of "market forces".

Some say, we have to learn to compete with our new country men and women. We have to learn how to live how they live. Unions have to go, wages must be depressed, and social programs must be reigned in. What we really need to learn is that we are the tax payers and they are our representatives. What we want matters more than what they think we need. Their policies are creating poverty in this country and they have to go.


[edit on 12-11-2005 by Saphronia]

The minute the us government betrays canada and the contractual agreements between the two countries, i'm outta here.
This Nafta thing is really pizzing me off. They've had problems w/ this before, and everytime these canadian companies take the us gov to court they win..
is the us government that arrogant to keep pulling their little stunts time and time again?! how do they expect to keep relations good between the two countries that have been like brothers for decades?

It seems the us government enjoys burning bridges...
The superpower will find itself to be super loney, as various countries turn their backs and make new agreements w/ eachother for economics reasons as well as diplomatic ones.