Tag: Canada

Mexico Ratifies Trump’s Trade Agreement

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by Shelby Talcott   The Mexican Senate overwhelmingly voted to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Wednesday, making it the first country to do so. U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed the deal Nov. 30, 2018, but it was not ratified by any country until Wednesday. Trump helped make and sign the agreement in 2018. USMCA includes rules that call for about 40% of automobile parts be produced by workers who earn a minimum of $16 an hour and more requirements that the parts be made in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, The Washington Post reported. Trump replaced NAFTA with USMCA in an effort to get better deals for U.S. workers. Mexican senators voted 114-4 to ratify USMCA. The treaty only needed a simple majority to pass, according to WaPo. Trudeau also wants to move forward with decisions on the trade deal, but will probably wait until the Trump administration agrees on a deal with Democrats, WaPo reported. The United States is having the most difficult time out of the three countries, as Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn’t given a date for the vote. House Democrats are also pushing…

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Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis Set to Sign Cost-Reducing Drug Importation Bill

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by Evie Fordham   Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears set to sign a bill creating a program to import prescription drugs from Canada after the Republican-backed legislation passed the state Senate. The bill passed the GOP-controlled Florida House 93-22 on April 11, reported The Associated Press. The Washington Examiner characterized the legislation as a move to lock down “the gray vote.” It passed in the state Senate 27-13 on Monday morning. “The United States pays more for prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world,” DeSantis said after the bill’s passage in the state House. “In Florida, we can change that by employing safe, common sense solutions such as importing FDA approved prescription drugs from Canada.” Opponents of the bill have called the policy socialist and point out that only one other state, Vermont, has taken steps toward a similar program, although it faces federal hurdles. “For starters it is one of [Independent Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders’ ideas,” Grover Norquist of conservative group Americans for Tax Reform said April 22. “The rest of the world has damaged their ability to invent new drugs. We invent the drugs. Then they put price controls on them. And some politicians in Florida want to bring those price controls into Florida, a…

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Prime Minister Trudeau Faces Calls to Resign Amid Growing Scandal

Anthony Gockowski

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing calls to resign after ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that she was pressured to obstruct a criminal prosecution into one of Trudeau’s favored companies. In a hearing Wednesday before the House of Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee, Wilson-Raybould said she faced “a consistent and sustained effort” by many people in Trudeau’s administration, including the prime minister himself, to help construction firm SNC-Lavalin evade corruption charges. “Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity for interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential for consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA [Deferred Prosecution Agreement] was not made available to SNC,” she told the committee, noting that the agreement would’ve helped SNC-Lavalin officials avoid jail time in exchange for a hefty fine. “The Prime Minister asks me to help out—to find a solution here for SNC—citing that if there was no DPA there would be many jobs lost and that SNC will move from Montreal,” Wilson-Raybould said of a meeting she had with Trudeau. She said things went on like this for a period of four months between September and December of 2018 before she was ultimately forced out of her role. “In…

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2018 Saw a Global Revolt Against Climate Change Policies

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by Michael Bastasch   Despite increasingly apocalyptic warnings from U.N. officials, 2018 has seen a number of high-profile defeats for policies aimed at fighting global warming. Politicians and voters pushed back at attempts to raise energy prices as part of the climate crusade. It started in June with election of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Ontario residents overwhelmingly voted Ford’s conservative coalition into power on a platform that included axing the Canadian province’s cap-and-trade program. Ford said his first priority upon taking office would be to “cancel the Liberal cap-and-trade carbon tax.” Ford then joined a legal challenge led by Saskatchewan against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s policy of a central government-imposed carbon tax on provinces that don’t have their own. Carbon tax opponents called Trudeau’s plan an attempt to “use the new tax to further redistribute income, which will increase the costs of this tax to the economy.” Roughly ten thousand miles away in Australia another revolt was brewing. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull saw his power base crumble within days of failing to pass a bill aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Turnbull’s so-called National Energy Guarantee to reduce energy sector emissions was opposed by a group of conservative members of…

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Ticket Prices Plummet for Bill and Hillary Clinton Tour

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by Joe Simonson   Ticket prices for the Clintons’ world tour have bottomed out, with prices as low as $11 at some locations. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been trekking across the United States and Canada over the past few months and have dates set through May 2019. Audience members can pay to hear the power couple opine on current events and reflect on their legacy in American politics. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd paid $177 for her ticket, yet prices for future events have plummeted. [ RELATED: Should Hillary Run In 2020? ] Seeing the duo at the Financial Centre in Sugar Land, Texas, on Dec. 4 runs anywhere from $11 to $80 depending on the seat quality. On resale sites, some sellers are asking for as much as $531 a ticket — although it’s unclear if they’ll be able to find a buyer at that price. In contrast, former first lady Michelle Obama is on her own speaking and book tour. Tickets for that event range anywhere from $300 to $2,500. – – – Joe Simonson is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Joe on Twitter.                …

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Greenpeace Fighting to Stop Drivers From Learning About Carbon Tax Costs

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by Jason Hopkins   Greenpeace is suing to stop the placement of stickers on gas stations that notify drivers of higher fuel prices due to the implementation of a carbon tax. Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who has embarked on a pro-energy agenda in his province since entering office — will execute a number of measures to fight back against Canada’s nationwide carbon tax. Besides challenging the carbon tax initiative in court, the conservative politician is looking to include lie item breakdowns on gas receipts and heating bills, informing customers of how much the carbon fee is costing them. The Ontario government is also looking to include stickers at gas pumps across the province, informing customers of the fee. “Today, I want to confirm that in Ontario the carbon tax’s days are numbered,” Ford told the media back in June. “In fact, upon the swearing in of my new cabinet, at the top of our agenda the very first item will be to pass an order to cancel the Liberal cap-and-trade carbon tax.” However, Ford’s sticker program is already running into opposition. Greenpeace — an international environmentalistorganization — announced it’s intention to mount a challenge. The group is arguing that the stickers are deceptive because…

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Trump Trade Deals with Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Japan: His ‘Keep America First’ Promise, Isolates China

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by Natalia Castro   Everyone knew the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a bad deal. President Obama knew. Hillary Clinton knew. President Trump knew. But only President Trump was willing to use our leverage to push our neighbors to the negotiating table and work out a strong, better deal for the U.S. While previous presidents pandered to other nations in the name of globalization, Trump is pursuing bilateral trade relations which are more likely to put American first and get our workers back on the job. NAFTA resulted in significant job loss as manufacturing sectors moved to Mexico, wages in the U.S. stagnated while working conditions in Mexico deteriorated as well. While many American political leaders seemed to agree the deal was bad, former President Barack Obama never followed through on his campaign promise to renegotiate the deal — a promise he made repeatedly in Aug. 2007, Nov. 2007, Dec. 2007, Jan. 2008, and Feb. 2008. Similarly, in July 2016 Hillary Clinton denounced the deal saying it “had not lived up to its promises” and promised to rework it. Instead, Obama pursued the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a deal that included Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand, Chile, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan…

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Trump Proves Tariffs, Threat to Leave NAFTA Were Key Leverage to Negotiating USMCA, Puts Dems in Tight Spot

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Trump right to try

by Robert Romano   They said it couldn’t be done. Once again, President Donald Trump is racing circles around his critics and showing that his tariff policy and the threat of leaving NAFTA altogether were most effective inducements to trade concessions, having resulted in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or the USMCA. The options for Canada and Mexico were to either give the U.S. the concessions it was demanding or else the U.S. would leave NAFTA. That the original NAFTA resulted in outsourcing is unquestioned. Since 1994, when NAFTA went into effect, the U.S. has had $1.033 trillion of goods trade deficits with Mexico and $923.4 billion with Canada, which is directly subtracted from the Gross Domestic Product. Its benefits were economically questionable, but politically it was unsustainable. Millions of lost manufacturing jobs later, and it created the political conditions necessary for Donald Trump to win the Electoral College in 2016 including the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump transformed the electoral landscape of the U.S. on this issue, and then after he won, as President he threatened to leave the agreement if changes were not made. When push came to shove, all three sides were able to hammer out an accord…

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Jeff Webb Commentary: Stop Carping About Tariffs

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by Jeff Webb   The economic revival we have experienced since the election of Donald Trump is getting a new boost from what would traditionally be viewed as an unlikely source – trade tariffs. The multipronged attack by this administration on the sluggish economy of the previous eight years is based on reducing corporate and individual taxes, providing capital investment incentives, dramatically reducing strangling regulations and a full assault on unfair and one sided international trade relationships. It should now be clear that the president is using the threat of US tariffs to incent other nations to abandon their policies that have in many cases led to the elimination of millions of jobs and made it next to impossible for US companies to do business in their respective countries. Mr. Trump is playing the long game here.  He knows that addressing these unfair practices will help boost the overall economy and reverse the outflow of manufacturing jobs that has eviscerated the middle class in our country over the past 25 years.  It will also provide new markets for American companies and address the theft of intellectual property and technology. It is disingenuous to paint the picture that the president is…

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WINNING: Trump Scores NAFTA Deal After Last-Minute Negotiations with Canada

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by Hanna Bogorowski   U.S. President Donald Trump came closer to fulfilling a campaign promise late Sunday night as he reached a revamped trade deal with Canada and Mexico that will rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after months of negotiations. Hours before Sunday’s midnight deadline proposed by the U.S., Canada agreed to sign on to the newly named United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which will give the U.S. greater access to Canada’s dairy markets as well as require a larger percentage of cars to be manufactured in North America. The deal will also include increased protections for workers in the U.S. and Canada. “Mexico and Canada have agreed to strong new labor protections, environmental protections and new protections for intellectual property,” Trump said at a press conference Monday. “This new deal is an especially great victory for our farmers.” “For example, we [will] require a large portion of every car to be made by high-wage workers, which will greatly reduce foreign outsourcing which was tremendous problem,” he said. “More automobiles and parts will be manufactured inside the United States. We will be manufacturing many more cars and our companies won’t be leaving the United States, firing their workers and building their cars…

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Commentary: President Trump’s Pro-American Worker Push Makes Labor Day a Time to Celebrate

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Tennessee Star

by Jeffery Rendall   Perhaps it’s fitting heading into Labor Day weekend that we should talk about jobs – not necessarily how many Americans have them versus those that don’t and are still searching, but how conditions are improving in the employment market and who’s reaping the benefits. First came the announcement earlier this week that the United States and Mexico had agreed to ditch the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in favor of a new pact that will help even out trade imbalances between the two countries and hopefully put smiles on the faces of workers above and below the southern border. Naturally President Donald Trump turned the significant occasion into a “must see” TV moment. Jordan Fabian and Vicki Needham reported at The Hill, “President Trump said Monday the U.S. has reached an agreement with Mexico amid contentious talks on revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)… “’It’s a big day for trade. It’s a big day for our country,’ the president told reporters in the Oval Office, who were summoned to watch Trump speak by phone with outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. “Trump cast doubt on whether Canada would be party to a new trade agreement,…

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Commentary: Trump Kills NAFTA

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Donald Trump

by CHQ Staff   President Donald Trump has fulfilled another campaign promise and effectively killed the never “free” North American Free Trade Agreement by concluding a separate preliminary United States–Mexico Trade Agreement that modernizes and rebalances the trade relationship between the two countries. According to a White House news release this is the first time that a modern United States trade agreement has been renegotiated. In a live telephone conversation with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, President Trump said, “…they used to call it NAFTA.  We’re going to call it the United States-Mexico Trade Agreement, and we’ll get rid of the name NAFTA.  It has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt very badly by NAFTA for many years.  And now it’s a really good deal for both countries, and we look very much forward to it.” Defying the critics who said that Trump was alienating Mexico, President Peña Nieto said through an interpreter, “And I’m really grateful, Mr. President.  I want to say that you — I greatly recognize and acknowledge your political will and your participation in this.” President Peña Nieto also noted, “I think this is something very positive for the United States and Mexico. …

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Police Raid Anti-Pipeline Site, Destroy Their Camp And Send Them Straight To Jail

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pipeline protest camp removed

by Jason Hopkins   Law enforcement ended a lingering standoff with an anti-pipeline camp site, arresting five protesters and destroying all the makeshift homes that were built. Intense opposition has centered around the Trans Mountain pipeline project, an expansion proposal that will ultimately stretch from Alberta to British Columbia’s west coast. Construction workers for Kinder Morgan, North America’s largest infrastructure company, have been subjected to numerous environmental protests as they continue to work on the $7.4 billion-dollar crude oil pipeline. A group of environmental protesters have long congregated in a camp near a Kinder Morgan tank farm in Burnaby, British Columbia. For the past several months, Camp Cloud — the name of the protest camp site — had grown in size. Starting with a single trailer in November, Camp Cloud had grown to include numerous vehicles and trailers, a cabin, an outdoor shower, a two-story wooden “house,” and numerous tents. [ RELATED: Full-Time Work: North Dakota Pipeline Protesters Are Now Protesting In Michigan ] For months, the camp site served as a hub of local protest against the Trans Morgan pipeline. However, law enforcement finally put an end to the camp on Thursday. Workers are bulldozing a two-storey wooden structure at the camp. pic.twitter.com/JQbP7vpQQj —…

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US Lawmakers Warn Trump Tariffs Threaten Local Newspapers

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newspapers

About a dozen members of Congress warned Tuesday that newspapers in their home states are in danger of reducing news coverage, laying off workers or going out of business if the United States maintains recently imposed tariffs on Canadian newsprint. The Trump administration ordered the tariffs in response to a complaint from a paper producer in Washington state. It argues that Canadian competitors take advantage of government subsidies to sell their product at unfairly low prices. About a dozen lawmakers testified against making the tariffs permanent during a United States International Trade Commission hearing. The commission is reviewing whether U.S. producers of certain groundwood paper products, including newsprint, have been materially injured because of the imports from Canada. The commission’s findings help determine whether the Department of Commerce makes the tariffs permanent. Newsprint is generally the second-largest expense for local papers. The tariffs have generally increased newsprint prices by 25 to 30 percent. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine both argued that the tariffs will hurt the industry they’re designed to help because it will diminish the market for newsprint in America as newspapers shrink or close. “If you end up with a smaller market, you haven’t helped…

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Trump and Environmentalists Are On The Same Wave Length On This One Huge Issue

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Donald Trump

by Chris White   President Donald Trump and activists at the Sierra Club apparently have at least one issue in common: neither one of them like the decades-old free trade agreement the U.S signed with Canada and Mexico. Trump’s agenda prioritizing American manufacturing jobs over those in Canada and elsewhere is placing his administration at odds with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Sierra Club has its own reservations, claiming the 26-year-old deal allowed for the off-shoring of jobs and increase in air pollution. The president has continually railed against NAFTA, a trade deal former President Bill Clinton signed in 1993 to free up trade across North America. Trump’s bold and flashy rhetoric has mirrored his broad skepticism over trade agreements in general. He often cites the trade deficit as evidence Europe and others are taking advantage of the U.S. Sierra Club apparently feels the same way, at least in some ways. “They need to know that we do not support Scott Pruitt and we do not support NAFTA,” the group wrote in a press statement railing against EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and NAFTA. Their opposition takes a slightly different form than Trump’s complaint. “NAFTA has been a disaster for our communities. Trade agreements…

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Kudlow: Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau Betrayed Us, ‘Stabbed Us In The Back’

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Larry Kudlow

by Robert Donachie   White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “stabbed” the U.S. “in the back” when he announced his nation will impose retaliatory tariffs against America. President Donald Trump, Trudeau and other leaders of the G7 nations — Britain, Canada, Japan, Italy and Germany –met for a two-day summit over the weekend to discuss the possibility of ending a potential trade war. “We had long night sessions. He (the president) was a participant. Not only did we play, we were in the communique. Team players, really, really, team players here to help the Western alliance and then Trudeau throws him under the bus with very harsh language,” Kudlow told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”  “Jake, it was a betrayal. It was a kip diplomatic betrayal. That is not good, and we were close to negotiating a trade deal with Mr. Trudeau,” Kudlow said. Trudeau announced in a post-summit press conference that Canada is considering imposing tariffs against the U.S. if America does not back away from tariffs on steel and aluminum. “The United States has moved forward with significant tariffs on our steel and aluminum industry,” Trudeau said. “I highlighted that it was not helping in our renegotiation of…

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Canadians Could Face Hate Crimes Over Using the Wrong Gender Pronouns

Tennessee Star Staff

Canada passed a law Thursday making it illegal to use the wrong gender pronouns. Critics say that Canadians who do not subscribe to progressive gender theory could be accused of hate crimes, jailed, fined, and made to take anti-bias training. Canada’s Senate passed Bill C-16, which puts “gender identity” and “gender expression” into both the country’s…

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