Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed...
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CANADA |
FIRE BURNING BETWEEN
U.S., CANADA AS NAFTA ROUND 5 WINDS DOWN: As the
seventh and final day of NAFTA Round 5 kicks off today in Mexico City, the host
country is in some ways staying under the radar as its two North American
counterparts face off at the negotiating table.
Amid a relatively quiet fifth round of talks, Canadian negotiators have
begun using their time in closed-door meetings to point out how U.S. proposals
would hurt not just North America but the U.S. in particular. In conversations
on automotive rules of origin, government procurement and the five-year sunset
review, Canada is challenging the U.S. proposals with its own data and asking
for explanations of the rationale behind the need for change.
Canada's strategy, which involves putting down
red lines and rejecting U.S. proposals in public while doing little in private
to put forward counter proposals of its own, has become increasingly irritating
to U.S. officials who feel it does little to advance the state of the
negotiations, sources close to the talks say.
Part of Canada's
reasoning behind its unwillingness to engage could be chalked up
to the age-old mantra in trade negotiations that "the first one to give is
the first one to lose," one private-sector source familiar with the
discussions said. But Canada argues that
it is only holding back its own counter proposals on aspects of the
negotiations where it feels that the U.S. offer is completely unworkable even
as a starting point. "Certain
figures, or certain proposals, are just nonstarters," a Canadian source
said. [POLITICO's Morning Trade, November 21, 2017]
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1
big thing: Impact of Big Tech hearings
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Data: SurveyMonkey polls,Oct.
23-26 and Nov. 2-3; Chart: Axios Visuals
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A SurveyMonkey poll for Axios found that Americans weren't impressed by
tech firms' explanation of how Russian actors took advantage of their
platforms during the 2016 election, but most people still don't embrace
regulating the web platforms to prevent it from happening again, Axios' David McCabe reports:
The bottom
line: Neither Congress nor the tech
companies did themselves any favors. But tech execs tell me they won by not
losing: Their counsels answered hours of questions with no big gaffe or
revelation.
Be
smart: The wariness of government regulation is
widespread and bipartisan enough to be a warning to lawmakers who want to
pursue it. (Axios AM, November 7, 2017)
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NAFTA ROUND FOUR, DAY THREE: Welcome
to the midpoint of the NAFTA renegotiations, assuming the original goal of
finishing in seven rounds remains valid.
Doubts are increasing about whether the three sides can reach a deal:
Negotiators are more or less halfway through their allotted schedule, with only
two chapters closed and many make-or-break issues still undecided - including
whether the pact will include a controversial "sunset review"
provision pushed by the United States that would terminate it after five years
unless the three countries agree to extend it.
Over the past two days, teams from the United States, Canada and Mexico
dug through issues related to state-owned enterprises, textiles, goods,
services, government procurement, food safety, plant and animal health, the
environment, financial services, anti-corruption and regulatory practices, according
to a schedule seen by POLITICO when talks started at the beginning of the
week. They are expected to take up rules
of origin today, when the Trump administration could lay down its highly
anticipated and controversial proposal to tighten auto trade rules in a bid to
bring more manufacturing jobs to the United States. More talks on rules of
origin are expected on Sunday and Monday.
Other negotiating groups expected to meet today include customs, trade
remedies and dispute settlement, temporary entry of workers, intellectual
property, energy, labor, financial services and telecoms. Looking ahead to the weekend, agriculture is
expected to be on the agenda, including the politically sensitive issue of
Canada's highly protected dairy sector, which U.S. milk producers want to pry
open. Other issues slated for Saturday and Sunday include digital trade,
intellectual property, pharmaceuticals, investment, labor, financial services
and technical barriers to trade. [POLITICO's Morning Trade,
October 12, 2017]
FARMERS
FOR FREE TRADE GETS FARM BUREAU BACKING: A new grass-roots
campaign will attempt to connect free trade with economic success for farmers
and rural communities as NAFTA remains under threat and uncertainty clouds U.S.
trade policy in Asia. The Farmers
for Free Trade group,
which is headed by former Sens. Max Baucus and Dick Lugar and received the
support Tuesday of the American Farm Bureau Federation, will seek to mobilize
farmers nationwide as a force for supporting existing and future trade
deals. "We're going to drive home
the threats to export markets like Mexico, Canada, South Korea are threats to
states like Kansas, Kentucky and Washington," said Sara Lilygren,
president of the group's board of directors, during a press call on Tuesday
afternoon. The bipartisan effort will
seize on the agriculture industry's general frustration with the Trump
administration's trade policy, which many in the export-oriented sector argue
started off with a misstep when the newly elected president abandoned the
Trans-Pacific Partnership and then put at risk major benefits to agriculture by
initiating a renegotiation of NAFTA. The group also intends to speak out on the
hits ag has taken as a result of enforcement actions and the need to pursue new
trade deals, she said. [POLITICO's
Morning Trade, October 11, 2017]
AUTOMAKERS: NAFTA WITHDRAWAL WOULD BE A $10 BILLION TAX ON THE
INDUSTRY: A withdrawal from NAFTA would ravage the U.S. auto industry,
impose what would amount to a $10 billion tax on automakers and lead to
consumers purchasing cars with fewer safety and electronic features, industry
experts said Thursday. Charles Uthus,
vice president for international policy at the American Automotive Policy
Council, said during a panel discussion that duty-free benefits that currently
exist under NAFTA save U.S. automakers about $10 billion each year. A
withdrawal that results from a failure to reach an agreement with Canada and
Mexico would then amount to "basically a $10 billion tax on the auto
industry in America," he said. The
impact would be just as bad if the administration were to move forward with
attempts to tighten the auto rules of origin to the point where it would be
easier for manufacturers simply to ignore the rules and instead pay the tariff,
which is only about 2.5 percent. USTR is reportedly pushing a provision that
would require 50 percent of the parts of a car come from the United States in
order to be eligible for NAFTA benefits, and 85 percent come from a NAFTA
country. Significantly tightening the
rules of origin in a bid to create more U.S. manufacturing jobs would actually
backfire and threaten 24,000 jobs in the auto parts sector, according to a new
study by the Boston Consulting Group commissioned for the Motor & Equipment
Manufacturers Association. Completely withdrawing from NAFTA would cost an
estimated 25,000 to 50,000 jobs, the study said. [POLITICO's Morning Shift, October 13, 2017]
Worth noting: No
Republican seems to care about the tax package's miserable polling. Why not? A
senior administration official summed it up in a text message (using Axios
style):
"Can't go into election next year with
'accomplishments' only being:
- Kept Obamacare
- Fixed DACA
- Raised debt ceiling
- Increased spending via a partially paid-for sequestration budget
cap deal."
[Axios Sneak
Peek, November 26, 2017]
“Brett Vanderbrook was driving for Uber last week when he got a call from an unfamiliar number. He let it go to voicemail and when he listened to it later, he got a shock: It was a recorded message telling him to stop making ‘negative and derogatory posts about [Trump].’ ‘I was dumbfounded at first and then creeped out,’ said Vanderbrook ... [And he] is not alone[:] Across the country, and even in Canada, people have reported on social media that they’ve received the same robocall.” In the recording, a man’s voice says, “Listen. We’re going to have to ask you to lay off on the negative and derogatory posts about President Trump, OK?” After a pause, the man says, “What’s your problem, anyways? Don’t you want to make America great again?” “Well, you’ve been warned,” the man says in conclusion. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you. Have a nice day.”
Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed... from the final speech in The Great Dictator
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