Quote:
Originally Posted by (((myzmak)))
somewhat amusingly, the 'local' angle on all of this is that the trade war with china is distracting trump's team from their stupid positions on NAFTA.
in recent days (if the rumours/stories are to be believed) team trump has been abandoning some of their long held (and stupid) NAFTA positions because they really want to get the new deal done by April 13-14 (summit of the americas) and they don't want to be distracted from fighting with china as they negotiate with us.
....we'll see how it all plays out but, for the most part, it would seem the canada-mexico strategy has been working out so far (keep negotiating no matter how stupid the american positions are and avoid engaging in too much public mudslinging about those stupid positions)
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You know what? When I was a young girl, we had this visiting young lecturer, a novice for the novices, a 40 year old young man gave us a lecture about trade deals. I was so taken by it I asked him out for a pint so he could explain more to me and almost every question I asked he started his answer with a solid "I'm not an expert, I'm really just in the coffee boy in the UM (our states department, Ulkoministeriö)".
At some point I asked him how much more coffee runs does he has to do before he'll become an expert and he said he has still about ten years to go since he is such a fast study!
I walked away from that conversation with a profound understanding that this trade shit is very fucking complicated. I keep enjoying conversations on this topic but every time someone like trump says trade wars are easy to win or that yeah, we are very close to signing a trade deal with the UK as he said last time he was around here (or was that the time before that?) I just truly hope duct taping a presidents mouth would be something the secret service has the right to.
I feel sorry for your negotiators tho, especially those of Mexico. They're not only getting the hate for the illegal immigration but also for many industries moving there. If you have to explain basic economics and talk about a wall simultaneously while some Canadians are snorting at the table for the soft wood lumber tariffs, you know you're screwed.