| | | i don’t know where the 90% Export number comes from, it looks more like 29% to me, as Canada Exports 4.6M Tons, but produces roughly 16 M tons.
By the way, Canada imports almost as much steel than they export:
CA Trade Data
As far as NAFTA is concerned, it is not clear to me what POTUS is trying to fix. the trade with Canada ai almost balanced with $287B in exports and $300 in imports for a deficit of a mere $17B.
The biggest trade deficit within NAFTA is with Mexico with about $60B (you can get all these numbers for Census.gov), and even thwt pales with the deficit with China of about $350B, which of course has nothing to do with NAFTA whatsoever.
So what is the problem that Trump is trying to solve here? Ironically, the biggest import food from Canada is actually cars, which is going to be a problem if the Steel cost for US factories will increase by a few hundred $/car, which may an US manufacturer shift production to Canada (make good use of all the surplus steel that can’t go to the US any more lol), costing many more jobs than can be gained by boosting the US steel industry. Of course , he could increase the tariffs on cars from Canada too, but it just seem from a trade balance POV that Canada can retaliate tit for tat almost as well.
The whole thing makes no sense. He goes after a good neighbor which based on the numbers practises fair trade, while leaving out the elephants in the room (China and to some extend Mexico). I also wish that folks would look at credible data sources from the government and trade associations rather than using social media rehashes that just seem to be made up. |
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