This Is our Village

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Canada as an imminent threat to national security

Imminent Threat to the National Security Law and Legal Definition

From Bloomberg News
U.S. President Donald Trump turned to a Cold War-era law to stem the flow of steel imports, part of a campaign pledge to save American industrial jobs. He may do the same on autos. At issue is a little-used part of 1962 trade legislation sometimes called the "nuclear option" or the "big sledgehammer," which invokes national security to counter cheap imports. Such heavy tools can prompt a furious response from other countries, triggering complaints to the World Trade Organization.

1. What is this weapon?
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 allows the president to adjust imports without a vote by Congress should the Department of Commerce find evidence of a national-security threat from foreign shipments. After Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a former steel tycoon, declared that such a threat exists in the metals industry, Trump levied tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. On Wednesday, the U.S. said it’s investigating national-security implications of importing automobiles.

2. What’s the case for trade as a national-security concern?
The U.S. law doesn’t define “national security,” so the president has wide latitude to determine a threat. Advocates of the Section 232 action on steel, for instance, said a weakened U.S. steel industry would be less ready to build tanks and other weaponry should a military crisis arise. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, in a memo to Ross, concurred that imports of steel and aluminum “based on unfair trading practices” do "impair the national security." But he added that the military’s requirements for steel and aluminum "each only represent about 3 percent of U.S. production," so those trading practices don’t have an effect on meeting "national defense requirements."

To affirm that Canada is an imminent security threat to the USA is insulting and untethered to the truth.

But perhaps we are a threat. So I am seeking your views, opinions and suggestions on the following:

Are canadians still welcomed in Florida?
Do we need to take special precautions against potential had hoc defenders of the land ?  Really troubling.
Should we back-up in our parking spots so as to hide our plates?
Should we hush our voices when we speak French, or Canadian english, heh?

This is an all time low in our mutual relationship. Much to worry about.

I speak for myself and don't purport to represent anyone else.



4 comments:

  1. I speak for only myself, too. I think you are a little harsh on President Trump and the US in what you write, and toward the end you become needlessly sarcastic.

    I think you Canadians are very good neighbors to the US, but I think you have also had it pretty good being protected militarily for over a century by the US "umbrella." It may or may not be mostly for direct national security reasons that the Trump administration is levying tariffs on imported metals. The bigger reason may be to offset the trade imbalances we have suffered under for too long. Either, however, it can be argued, ultimately affects our national security—and may I suggest, in turn, the security of Canada!

    The weight of the world is on the shoulders of the US and its citizens. You are fortunate where you are located. Would you like to trade places with Poland or Lithuania? We are not perfect, but no country in history has been as generous as the US to other countries. I am sorry to say it, but in your blog post you sound like an ingrate. What entitles you to the favorable treatment you claim you should have?


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    1. You watch way too much Fox news, try some other channels for "FAIR AND BALANCED"

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    2. What I am saying is that we are not a threat to your national security. We always stand cheek to jowl with you in world conflict. ( except for the 1st Iraq invasion ). We spend 2% of our GDP on defence. We built airports close to aluminum smelters during WW 2 to protect them; they were needed by you for armaments. I like to deal in facts, less so on emotion. There is no doubt that the institutions you helped launch after the war ( Marshall plan, UN, World bank etc ) helped all nations recover after the war. But guess what? All boats rise in rising water. Yes we gor richer, you more than anybody else. And that's ok. But know that in trade wars, we will all lose in wealth, you more than others.
      You think that more aluminum will be available from US manufactures? Can't be done. Will cause inflation ( you know, aluminum ha 3 main economic inputs: Bauxite,electricity, manufacturing efficiency. Bauxite is cheap and we bring it in from Jamaica, Australia, others. Canada has a natural advantage in producing cheap, gren electricity. Our manufactures are amongst the most efficient in the world.) You want to increase the price of aluminum, well ok But it wont solve zilch.
      In terms of steel we buy 2 billion dollars more of steel than we sell.
      Here are some exerps from CNN ( and I never watch Fox by the way ):
      The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, are worth US$52 billion apiece, according to Forbes. And they want trade to flow freely — something that makes them loathe tariffs.

      The Koch brothers’ political network is launching what its executives are framing as a multi-year, multimillion-dollar campaign to knock down the billions of dollars in tariffs the Trump administration is moving to impose on imports from around the globe.


      This family has a lot of money, and they’re willing to spend it by supporting candidates who are going to support the pro-growth, pro-free trade, pro reductions in tariffs agenda.
      Bill gates yesterday offered a free book to all graduating sudents. Here is some info on this;
      On Tuesday, the billionaire Microsoft (MSFT) cofounder and philanthropist said he'll pick up the tab for all US college graduates to download a copy of Hans Rosling's book, "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think."

      The book, released in April and currently listed at $14.99 as an e-download on various sites, offers advice on how to think about the world and how personal instincts can impact our interpretation of information
      So if we can have a discussion based on facts, great. Fake facts and lies don't help.
      Anyways, I am not an ingrate and i like americans. In the 50 years I have benn travelling on the planet, I have never met an ugly american.
      But please, don't claim we are an imminent threat. That's insulting and unacceptable.


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    3. Hi Michel,
      Thank you for your kind words "I have never met an ugly American" (which takes some forgiving) and your thoughtful reply. I did not mean for a moment I considered the Canadian PEOPLE, or government, a threat to the US. No, you are the best. The threat, I believe as Trump sees it, is in our letting our production of steel and some other products drop to such a low point that we endanger our security in the event of war.

      I realize that from a purely economic point of view—with our own economic interests at heart—we might do best to let market forces take their natural course and buy cheap. If others can produce steel (or other products) cheaper than we, let us take advantage of the cheap labor or raw materials. Everyone gains.

      But enter the danger and reality of war. Then, without being able to make an immediate turnaround by using resources ON HAND (e.g., steel and aluminum for airplanes, munitions and tanks), we could be defeated. This was one of the lessons of World War II. Nazi Germany, for its part, quietly began building up a formidable arsenal of weapons, which enabled them to crush any opposition. At the same time our burgeoning automobile industry HERE IN THE STATES enabled America, almost turning on a dime, to retrofit Detroit's automobile assembly plants so tanks and other weaponry could be mass-produced. These were used to aid Great Britain in the early days of the War and to later supply our own forces.

      So to be ready for war changes things. As the world's superpower for good, we must be especially watchful we do not come apart at the seams ourselves. Trade imbalances in which we come out second best may be okay to a point and in keeping with the US being a generous country. But allowed to go too far, they will bring down the beneficent giant himself. "America first" sounds selfish. It need not be at all.

      What is FOX News? Is it on one of our regular TV channels? I'll have to check and see what I've been missing.


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