Trade War heats up with Canada

Canada launches wheat challenge
Fighting permanent U.S. tariffs

Michelle Lang
Calgary Herald; With a file from The Canadian Press

Saturday, October 04, 2003

Ottawa stepped up its trade tiff with the United States over the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) on Friday, launching a NAFTA challenge of an American decision to permanently impose punishing tariffs on wheat imports from its northern neighbour.

On Friday morning, a U.S. International Trade Commission tie vote upheld a proposed 14 per cent duty for Canadian spring wheat imports on the basis the CWB's marketing practices diminish American producers' profits.

The commission, which has yet to provide written reasons for the decision, unanimously struck down a 13.55 per cent tariff on durum wheat, finding no injury from Canadian sales of the pasta-making wheat.

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The tariffs will effectively shut Canadian spring wheat out of the U.S. market as harvest wraps up and exports grow in volume, said CWB officials.

They claim the duties will cost farmers north of the border $30 million annually in lost sales.

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U.S. officials have made no move to re-admit live Canadian cattle after a single case of mad cow disease was found in Alberta this spring, although the U.S. has partially lifted its ban on beef. The long-standing dispute over softwood lumber is also on-going, with U.S. imports of Canadian wood still subject to duties totalling 27 per cent.

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((((((((((Funny when Bush stood beside Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien at a UN conference in Mexico, and professed to be a staunch defender of North American free trade. And at the exact same moment, his henchmen in Washington were inking a deal that would slap a 29-per-cent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber--a move that cost Canadians tens of thousands of jobs, and crippled one of the country's biggest industries. The spin-off effect rippled through Canada's entire economy.

I guess Bush is only a free trader when it suits him to be. The duty on Canadian softwood smacks of blatant protectionism. It's another case of the tail wagging the dog.

When the influential American lumber producers whined to the US Commerce Department and their allies in Congress and the Senate, they should have been told to fix their industry to make American lumber producers more efficient and competitive in a free trade, free enterprise market.

After all, aren't free enterprise and market competition what the Republican Party of America is all about? Instead, it's the Canadians who were given the high hard one on the softwood issue.

If Bush is such a staunch defender of free trade, he should have intervened in this dispute and exerted some influence. You're either in support of free trade, or you're not - and Bush needs to stop playing both sides of the court from the middle.

Incidentally, Canadians weren't the only ones stiffed by this duty. The American consumer pays about $1,500 more for a new home. It seems that the support of deep-pocketed lumber producers means more to Bush than the votes of a few new homeowners.

I guess this is payback on Bush's "With us or against us" on the war issue.

when we start stealing their water.