Sometimes irony is entertaining. Sometimes it hurts. Tom Walkom points to the irony of Donald Trump's insistence on American content rules as part of NAFTA:
Under NAFTA, automobiles manufactured anywhere in North America may be sold duty-free in Canada, the U.S. or Mexico.
Since, at $2.45 (U.S.) an hour, Mexican wages are a fraction of what they are in the other two NAFTA countries, this is a powerful incentive to locate production there.
As a recent report by former CIBC chief economist Jeff Rubin shows, this is exactly what has happened. Rubin calculates that the number of auto jobs in Mexico has quadrupled over the past decade. Over the same period, auto manufacturing jobs shrank by 26 per cent in Canada and 28 per cent in the U.S.
Which brings Walkom to Unifor's strike against GM's plant in Ingersoll:
Their demands did not focus on the usual issues such as wages. Rather employees sought ironclad assurances from GM that Ingersoll would continue to be the lead plant in North America for production of the popular Chevy Equinox sport utility vehicle.
Earlier this year, GM moved production of its Terrain model to Mexico from Ingersoll — at a cost of 400 Canadian jobs. The CAMI workers and their union, Unifor, wanted to make sure this didn’t happen again.
What the union wants is what Canadian politicians of various stripes used to insist upon:
Until recently, it was the position of the New Democratic Party. A little further back, it was the position of the Liberal Party.
Justin Trudeau may reject economic nationalism as dangerous. But his father, Pierre, did not. Indeed, Pierre Trudeau recognized that sometimes even the most cosmopolitan of nations need to protect themselves from the buffeting winds of the global economy.
It was a principle enshrined in the old Auto Pact. All of which begs the question: Could Donald Trump be right about something?
Image: theguardian.com
10 comments:
Of course he is right. Sometimes the blind squirrel finds a nut. If Trump truly believes its wrong for the USA to compete with NARCO Feudal labour its blasphemy for his party. So I expect a correction is comming fast down the line. What free trade has proven is that to get cheap goods the people who produce them suffer. Yet a six year old making basketballs in Pakistian
is the families chief wage earner, no wonder the Taliban are resilient.
The basic issue, Steve, is that any trade deal will produce winners and losers. So, the question then becomes, "What do you do for the losers?"
Owen seriously fuck them. We are living on the edge of cliff today. We could of should of and like communism it aint going to happen. We are all silverbacks waiting for a chance
to take over the hareem and nothing is going to change that, we have 2000 years of documented civilization to prove, no chance.
I was always against Free Trade. It makes no sense to me. We had a perfectly good Auto Pact and industries were bound by a 60% Canadian content rule. Those were torn up with Free Trade. Canada used to be able to protect its environment without threat of foreign law suits. Canada could insist on local raw materials, local labour, and home grown rules as needed.
I have no problem with Americans demanding America First. Why can't Canadians demand Canada first? We have politicians falling all over themselves and each other beating paths to New York and Washington. The US and Mexico are big enough to look after themselves. Canada should look after Canada and Canadians.
Sorry, Steve. I just don't buy that.
There's an old adage, Toby. I'm all right, Jack! You look after yours and I'll look after mine. That's essentially Donald Trump's take on NAFTA. The problem is that, under those conditions, trade is a zero sum game.
Free trade only operates well among nations whose societies are somewhat similar and coherent. Free trade is supposed to be collaborative, hence mutually beneficial. That's not what Trump seeks and he never has. He is out to best everyone, friend and foe alike. In some ways he's pursuing the Bush doctrine that reserved to America the right to use its power, up to and including military force, to ensure that no other nation or group of nations should ever rival the United States economically or militarily.
http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.ca/2006/10/has-bush-thrown-in-neo-con-towel.html
The other Trudeau, the intelligent one, used the mouse and elephant metaphor to reflect our difficult relationship. The current Trudeau, arguably the dimmest of the three boys, demonstrates a dangerous superficiality. I'm reminded of a story about JT as a young boy trolling through the lunch crowd and the Ottawa Hunt Club. Apparently he would make the rounds, table to table, playing up to the diners and melting the hearts of even the hardest Tory. It was PR then, it's PR now. If that's the limit of your skill set, you're easy meat for somebody like Trump.
Trump doesn't just want to best his opponents, Mound, he wants to obliterate them. The old fable is as true as ever: if you try to ride on the back of the tiger, you wind up inside.
companies are going to where they can find the lowest wages to maximize their profits. The governments of the U.S.A. and Canada did that with little thought for the workers. Now to even things out, the NAFTA agreement might want to give consideration to the unions being able to access Mexican workers and negotiate with the car companies just as if they were Canadian or American workers. Another NAFTA agreement clause could stipulate the workers of the low income countries be guaranteed higher wages, more in line with Canada and the U.S.A.
if Canada doesn't do anything, Mexico will have all the car manufacturing jobs and Canada and the U.S.A. will have little to none. So then the question will be why purchase a North American made car? Its not like its benefiting our economy.
Some interesting suggestions, eaf. NAFTA was originally constructed to favour capital. It seems only right that a do-over should balance the demands of both capital and labour.
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