Vice-President Mike Pence traveled to Canada today as an emissary of the Trump administration to support Canadian passage of the USMCA trade agreement.
According to Reuters media reports the vice-president was focused on the importance of a strong North American economic alliance, and how a united tri-lateral agreement can form a geopolitical hedge against influence from communist China and socialist ideologies in Cuba and Venezuela. Justin from Canada expressed his perspectives over diminished women’s rights, U.S. abortion laws, the important contributions of a transgender workforce, climate change and the NBA championship playoffs…. Yes, really:
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Meanwhile in Mexico: “The Senate, controlled by Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies, should approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) once it has passed through congressional committee, the president said.” (link)
Compare and contrast…
The Canadian window is short, if they don’t ratify the USMCA trade pact by the end of June, the Canadian parliament will go into legislative recess until after the general elections October 21st, 2019. Justin and Chrystia demand to be courted…
Meanwhile in Mexico:
[…] The Mexican Senate is not currently in session, but the government said special periods would be held to pass USMCA.
Lopez Obrador said he was “optimistic” the trade deal, which U.S. President Donald Trump had pushed for, would be approved in the U.S. Congress. The Mexican president said he did not expect major difficulties to arise in its U.S. passage. (link)
It will be interesting to watch what happens.
Factually and ideologically, throughout the entire trade discussion, the Trudeau administration has put anti-Trump politics ahead of the Canadian economy. The economic stagnation in Canada is a direct result.
On-one-hand Princess Freeland and Prince Sparkle Socks need to get their economy back on track; however, that means proceeding with ratification of the USMCA which is against their ideological interests.
On-the-other-hand Freeland and Trudeau do not want to support President Trump in any manner or form. The hatred of Trump is palpable and visible. Their hatred of Trump, and public pronouncements therein, is also part of their re-election strategy. They want to run for re-election using the “orange-man-bad” resistance approach.
However, with the scale of investment withdrawal from Canada if they don’t ratify the USMCA Trudeau won’t have much of an economy left to manage…. And that becomes a problem for Justin/Freeland and their ideological best friend Nancy Pelosi.
After all the 2017 and 2018 shenanigans pulled by Freeland and Trudeau; and specifically after their G7 stunt last year; President Trump is essentially done with them – I doubt President Trump would even take a call from Justin from Canada. And forget about USTR Robert Lighthizer…. he’s a thousand times more angry than Trump.
The U.S. relationship with Canada is fundamentally fractured, destroyed, unrecoverable, so long as Trudeau/Freeland are present and pushing their elitist, globalist, multinational agenda. The relationship is so bad, if a hostile nation was to threaten Canada, it would take some convincing to get President Trump to express any intent to defend.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to give Trump a win. Trudeau and Freeland don’t want to give Trump a win. However, if Trudeau and Freeland don’t quickly ratify the USMCA they’re screwed come October (elections). As a result, ratification in Canada will put Pelosi in a pressured pickle…. and would likely lead to the U.S. House taking up similar ratification.
Amid all the chaos, there’s an apex predator who thrives in the fray. His world-leading economy is firing on twenty-trillion cylinders…. and he’s lining up tankers of boost.
The U.S. economy is expanding at a rate more than double all other nations; the U.S. unemployment rate is 3.6%, half all other nations; U.S. inflation is barely above one percent, and average U.S. wage rate growth is 3.4 percent and climbing.
Funny that.
