Friend, Justin Trudeau has totally bungled our trade relationship with the US.
We knew right from the start, after Trump’s election, that we would have to make strategic and realistic choices to keep American markets open and our economy competitive. I proposed such a plan back then (see here).
Three quarters of our exports go to the US and this trade relationship is absolutely crucial for our prosperity.
But instead of thinking strategically, Trudeau and his minister Chrystia Freeland stupidly opened negotiations with new demands related to gender and aboriginal issues, labour rights and climate change.
You would think they deliberately wanted these negotiations to fail!
The purpose of free trade is not to enshrine social programs and to virtue signal how “progressive” you are. It’s to remove trade barriers and allow businesses and consumers to exchange goods and services freely!
Everything the Liberals are doing is pushing us in the WRONG DIRECTION.
After failing to reach any kind of agreement despite the deadline being pushed back several times, Trudeau now believes we can win a trade war with the US, even though their economy is ten times bigger than ours.
Effective July 1st, the Liberals will impose new tariffs on US imports that will harm Canadian consumers.
And as is usual for Liberals, they’re also taking advantage of the situation to increase spending and corporate welfare. Bill Morneau has said he will give more of our money to corporations affected by the tariff war.
This is not only a dangerous escalation of a conflict with our main trading partner, Friend, it’s also utterly UNFAIR to Canadian consumers and taxpayers.
But Trudeau is counting on this fight with our neighbour to prop up his popularity by appealing to Canadian patriotism, and perhaps call a snap election in the fall.
Patriotism doesn’t mean shooting ourselves in the foot and jeopardizing millions of jobs just to show that “we will not be pushed around.”
It means acting realistically and strategically to protect our long-term interests.
What we need are measures to restore our economic competitiveness:
- We should make the strategic choices necessary to get an agreement with the Americans instead of virtue signalling and playing a phoney patriotism card.
- We should remove our own trade barriers between provinces.
- We should reduce taxes for all businesses and restore our tax competitiveness with the US.
- We should scrap our carbon tax.
- We should get rid of our mountains of growth-killing regulations instead of constantly adding to them.
- We should eliminate corporate welfare.
- We should reform equalization.
This what a conservative “economic retaliation plan” looks like.
It’s a plan for prosperity through free trade and free markets, not senseless trade wars and market-killing taxes and regulations.
Thank you so much for your continued support.
—Max
