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70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?
by krona 17d ago
70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?
- LeBit 17d agoBecause the US is wreaking havoc world wide. The US cannot be trusted anymore. Better remove the bandaid now then wait until you are screwed. People now see China as the reliable partner. This will be a multigenerational change.
- pasc1878 17d agoBecause Trump is trade warring everyone. The middle democracies will do better fighting together and not deal with US individually.
- consp 17d agoIsn't the point that there already is one?
- NuclearPM 17d agoBecause the US is likely to ally with Russia over Poland.
- 9dev 17d agoBecause the US is going to throw Poland under the bus without even considering once if it yields a short-term benefit.
- walthamstow 17d agoUnder the bus again, I might add
- gustavus 17d agoThat's rich considering it was France and the UK that threw Poland under the bus despite having a signed defense pact. The US just came in to clean up the mess.
- post-it 17d agoI don't think they're talking about WWII.
- ajuc 17d agoWW2 ended with Yalta conference where Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's proposition of giving Poland to USSR's sphere of influence, making Poland (and rest of EE) their puppet state. Churchil wanted to pressure Stalin to leave Poland (and at least parts of EE) independent and even considered "Operation Unthinkable". At least that's what I think the guy above referenced.
- hilbert42 17d agoThat's pretty much what happened. Trouble was the stakes were already high, if Starlin didn't yield to a bluff (had one been pursued) it would have been an embarrassing backdown and a show of weakness on part of the allies. "Bluff" because no one other than perhaps Stalin would have followed through—to essentially extend WWII (this time between former allies). So pragmatism was the order of the day, thus Poland and EE were sacrificed.
- UpsideDownRide 17d agoIf Stewie punched me, It doesn't mean Quagmire didnt.
- awruko 17d agoI am under impression that some other nation was involved in cleaning up. If you can even call it cleaning up.
- deleted 17d ago[deleted]
- Komte 17d agoSo the assumption is trading with Canada = trade war with US? Canada is abused pretty hard it seems...
- invaliduser 17d agoIf "70% of Canadian exports are to the US", that's probably why the US has so much leverage, and I can see why the Canadian government would like a change. Hence the need for a rebalancing of trade partnerships.
- arethuza 17d agoWouldn't being strongly aligned with the EU give Canada a lot more leverage in trade discussions with the US?
- gizajob 17d agoNo
- microtonal 17d agoImagine they were in the EU. The EU could leverage the trade bazooka in the current tariff war. Even if Canada doesn't join the EU, there is a lot of mutual benefit from an economic and military defense pact (beyond NATO, which is nearly dead).
- gizajob 17d agoI’m not sure what the EU has to trade, except Volkswagens and BMWs which are 10% car and 90% pension costs.
- microtonal 17d agoYou know that the EU has a large trade surplus of goods with the US?
- ericmay 17d agoRight… so why do you think the US imposed tariffs? Germany is already seeing gigantic problems via declining exports because of China. Are they going to stop exports to the United States too? The EU can’t add any more “trade bazooka” than it already has. Canada doesn’t change anything in that dynamic.
- gbalduzzi 17d agoDeals right now are intended to increase the trades between Canada and reducing those with the US, in little improvement steps. If in 10 years the ratio moves from 70/6 to 50/26, the situation will be vastly different. The options are not black and white
- Lio 17d agoIt's not that they want to enter a trade war with Trump, it's that there's large room for growth in trade between Canada and Poland (your example). Since Trump is hostile to trade with both parties there's an opportunity to replace lost US trade that's probably not coming back. Trump has weakened himself and his allies where as mutual trade between Canada and the EU makes both stronger.
- ajuc 17d agoPolish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic. Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import. Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
- graemep 17d agoWhat about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
- krzyk 17d agoLike what specifically? Only services come to mind. Any hardware is produced in Asia, in fabs that use equipment from Netherlands.
- graemep 17d agoThe hardware is produced in Asia but American controlled. its still a dependency on being supplied by American companies. "Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies. That is just tech. What about fuel? machinery. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-us-trade/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-us-trade/
- krzyk 17d agoYes, but services are easier to replace than hardware. And control is something you have, and then you don't have if the country in which you operate decides otherwise (or US presidents throws another tantrum). Companies use AWS because it is there and others used it, so they got ball rolling. It doesn't mean one couldn't replace it with another service, most probably more pricey one. If there would be some kind of war, then one doesn't need to have servers in US, and European ones are right there. You can't easily replace e.g. lithium or other metals. Fuel is problematic, but there are places that are closer that could sell them (middle east, if we ignore current Russian state of mind). As for machinery, it is hard to guess what kind. Germany produces a lot of it, and I would guess China also. Not sure about pharmaceuticals. Generally US is not our greatest import partner, China is. And we have a big internal market also.
- raverbashing 17d agoFunny, to justify Brexit numbers like these were meaningless
- subscribed 17d agoPutler invested a lot in that. Cheap price for the impact we still see.
- epistasis 17d agoExports are really easy to move and replace, as has been proven again and again in the past two years. Turns out that imports can be far trickier and pose larger problems to an economy.
- rsynnott 17d agoIn 1960, 75% of Ireland's exports went to the UK, and 50% of its imports came from there. By 2000, it was 35% imports, 25% exports. Today it is 20% imports, 8% exports. There are a few things going on here, but a lot of it was EU membership giving Ireland options beyond its 'natural' trade partner (and then the big drop from 2000 to now was mostly Brexit). Being in a situation where 70% of your exports go to one country is arguably pretty unhealthy; that is something that Canada would do well to work towards reducing, even _if_ the US administration wasn't openly hostile.