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Canada needs a new National Policy
U.S. President Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada will cause severe economic dislocation across Canada. Hopefully, a combination of negotiations backed by counter-measures announced by Canada will succeed in removing the tariffs in coming months. However, Trump’s actions have permanently damaged the credibility of any Canadian economic strategy based on continental free trade. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford argues Canada needs to develop a new ‘National Policy’: one focused first and foremost on developing Canadian industries and capacities....
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Who’s Subsidizing Whom?
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened immediate across-the-board 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, possibly as part of a plan to use “economic force” to annex Canada. Trump claims the Canada-U.S. trade deficit constitutes an “emergency” (thus justifying violation of America’s trade treaties), and amounts to the U.S. “subsidizing” Canada to the tune of $200 billion per year.
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Global Manifesto to Democratize Work
The COVID pandemic has painfully reminded us of the lack of genuine power that most workers have in their working lives. As soon as COVID began to spread, it was immediately obvious that workplaces were very vulnerable to contagion – yet employers and government regulators were very slow to address the threat with adequate and meaningful protective measures. Compelled by economic necessity, and lacking organized voice and bargaining power, workers literally risk their lives to continue performing their duties – often for poverty-level wages, in dangerous conditions. If workers had real say over how their workplaces operate, they could demand and win obvious and important changes to make their jobs…
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WTO’s Overreach Explains its Growing Irrelevance
Contrary to the optimistic predictions of free trade theorists (and their seemingly scientific economic models), free trade agreements haven’t been beneficial for all participants in international commerce. Rather, for many reasons (including the emergence of large trade imbalances, deindustrialization, and lasting unemployment), business-friendly trade agreements have produced ‘losers’ as well as ‘winners.’ Moreover, losses have been concentrated in particular industries, regions, and social groups – fostering a backlash that has disrupted trade flows, and thrown into question the future viability of the WTO itself. Ironically, part of the failure of neoliberal trade policy rests with the overreach of those trade agreements (including the WTO), which have gone far beyond simply…