The cost of aluminum for consumers in Europe buying on the physical market has dropped due to expectations that Canadian shipments under U.S. tariffs from Tuesday will be diverted, physical market traders said.
. . .
The U.S. is a major importer of aluminum used widely in the transport, packaging and construction industries, shipping in 5.46 million metric tons of aluminum products in 2023, according the U.S. Commerce Department.
According to the Commerce Department, Canada accounted for 3.08 million tons or 56 per centof aluminum product imports to the United States for domestic consumption in 2023, the latest full year data available.
Isolated economies perform worse in the long run, usually by a lot. Fair and open trade is almost always a net benefit for both parties. What Canada needs is a diverse portfolio of trading partners, not 70% of our exports going to the US.
The Liberal party’s funding of Export Development Canada is an important cornerstone of this that we should not forget come election season.
Developing more stable trading partners as well. The US is closer, and will always be next door, but I think Trump 2.0 has shown us that we should not integrate our economy with theirs at all, rather just trade with them “opportunistically”. Long term partners should be developed elsewhere.
EU (CETA), Asia (CPTPP) and CANZUK need to be focused on.
I think we shouldn’t just see this as a Trump 2.0 thing either. This has been going on for at least a decade now. It’s just that T2.0 has taken things to the point that it can’t be ignored. NAFTA2 was pretty bad for us, and Biden hasn’t done anything to make things easier.
Even if we don’t get a Putin scene where Trump rewrites the constitution and gets a third term (somehow when he’s like 80 and clearly suffering from dementia), I have little hope that the next president will be any better. Even the best case scenario would be someone who’s completely occupied putting out the internal fires Trump has set with napalm, and won’t have time to give the rest of the world much thought, let alone Canada.
Relying so much on the US was never such a good idea, and there won’t be any stability down south for the next decade at least.
I find “Trump 2.0” useful to differentiate how I expect things to go down. Trump 1.0 came in and and flailed a lot. The US’ system of checks and balances moderated many of his “policy goals”. Trump 2.0 looks to replace competence in the bureaucracy with loyalty, and subverting any checks and balances.
A lot of power has accumulated within the office of the Presidency in the US. I used to figure that an advantage of the US system vs the Westminster model is that a PM with a majority in Parliament has very little he can’t do, as long as they are able to whip the votes. It seems that the US has drifted into an elected King almost. Broad authority within the Presidency will probably not go away anytime soon.
This makes for a very unstable government, assuming elections even stay fair.
Trump is old, there is going to be a post Trump era soon, but I don’t see a reversal if this model of governance. We can only deal with the US in 4 year terms from now on. Anything long term is too uncertain.
Isn’t this a somewhat flawed statement if you consider a long enough timeline? Not saying you’re wrong, just that history keeps happening.
Point to one truly isolated economy that’s doing well.
Well I can’t, but my point is actually having the opposite perspective: that even a well integrated world economy will eventually experience truly awful times, and, eventually, collapse. I didn’t mean to suggest isolationism was inherently better, apologies for any ambiguous wording.
No worries. I just wanted to point out that regardless of how insular a country is, there’s always something they’re importing or exporting. Even North Korea is the world’s hub for counterfeit everything.
💯 not even island nations are islands.
I hear North Korea is doing great.
Their deals with Russia should give their oligarchy a tidy little boost 👍
I am not speaking about going full isolationist. I am saying we need to isolate our economy more than it is, and focus on domestic production and trade over international trade in the current global climate.
Canada is in a unique position because we have so much that we could use domestically to produce our own goods that is currently being shipped to other countries. Domestic trade and production should be the default state only turning to international trade when it offers what cannot be produced domestically or when we have an excess not used domestically.
The article gives the perfect example: Aluminum. We should be producing the things aluminum makes, not selling it to buy back as a products later. Like the fighter jets we still don’t have.
We should be one of the richest countries in the world and we aren’t because we sell everything, including domestic infrastructure and natural resources, to anyone who will buy them.
Depends on the thing. For example it’s better to ship aluminum ingots than empty cans; however it’s better to ship a completed aeronautic assembly than ingots.