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The US has ten times the population and ten times the economy. Canada would have ten times the pain if it decided to get into an economic war with the US and wo
by Mountain_Skies 7y ago
The US has ten times the population and ten times the economy. Canada would have ten times the pain if it decided to get into an economic war with the US and would still not get the masks it wants. The US however does have plenty of pulp production that can be diverted into whatever use is most important at the moment.
This should be a wake up call to Canada to stop being so dependent on exporting commodities. It's been this way for my entire life and has been a constant complaint in Canadian economic circles but for some reason Canada doesn't seem to want to diversify. Maybe this will change that attitude.
- sudosysgen 7y agoI don't know that this would be the case. Pulp production is not a nameless commodity, it needs to be up to a certain spec for surgical masks, for example. Canada is the supplier for a great many US companies. Sure, the US could try to produce that speficic spec, but it would not be easy and would take precious weeks that the US cannot spare. If it could, production would just increase for respirators, but this has to be done instead because it takes too much time. And in that time, Canada will likely be able to set up production for the masks, actually. If I remember correctly 3M Canada does make filter media, so the expertise is there. It isn't rocket science either, it just takes time. In a full scale economic war between the US and Canda, at least all Canadians will still have water and electricity.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoEurope would help, Trump already backstabbed them multiple times by now. That also means the actual machines for producing the masks, since Germany makes those machines. China uses them. The ventilators for saving lives are also made by Germany. Good luck with your short term way of thinking.