I don't think every CDN thinks that southern tree farmers are any more bigoted or red of neck than the avg. CDN. He couldn't steal more or be more insular or paranoid than the other guy if he started out larnin' good at a young age, availing himself of all necessary gov't aid to achieve the the absolute nadir of being crooked and bad. If he really tried, he might surpass other countries' averages of bad, but I doubt it, looking around.
While the US does not have a monopoly on bully tactics it has the most money by virtue of its large, rich market. This affords it the advantage of being able to implement far reaching strategies to tilt things in foreign countries to its favour.
As cases in point I would like to remind the reader of US tactics to protect its fruit, rubber, oil, mining and wood acreages in Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Arabia, and the Congo for the past 100 years. I believe the terms "gunboat diplomacy", "covert action", "protecting US interests", and "Yanqui Imperialism" were among those coined to describe the State Department's actions, which were without precedent in foreign affairs since perhaps Ghengis Kahn or Hitler. In the interests of economic hegemony in the world, the USA has propped up more dictators than a Most New York bars have propped up drunks on a saturday night. The difference is that the NY bars support a better quality of low life than the US gov't.
Allan Dulles and his brother will "fondly" be remembered by many foreign nations as the most interfering tyrannical bastards who meddled without honourable justification in their domestic affairs, and caused the most human misery of any two dictators in their respective countries' histories.
The Dulleses came by their policies honestly from the US's long history of interference which has been carried forward with fiendish cleverness to today. No nation has lied more to its people. No nation has meddled more in foreign domestic affairs. No other nation has accrued more wealth at the point of a gun, enslaving people in foreign countries. It has done all this on the pretext of fighting "bad governments" "the confiscation of US interests" and communism. Have they really cleaned their slate, or just hidden their policies under the new world order?
Some people view free trade a benign policy that is meant to beneficially increase the trade of both countries whom reciprocally indulge in it. There are two caveats. One is that no economist in his right mind has ever said that free trade will protect any domestic industry. On the contrary, they point out that all weak or non competitive industries must die in a free trade situation. Since the smaller market's industries are all relatively weak, in comparison to ones trading domestically with larger volume, they must all die, almost without exception. The only exceptions would be resources that have cannot be found in the other country, or where some natural advantage of production applies, as in abundant hydro power, or short market transport distance. Caveat two is that the winning country must also ensure that the other country does not "cheat", i.e. undercut costs by subsidizing its favoured industries or lower interest rates to achieve a temporary advantage. It must therefore by some pressure be able to get the other country to change its domestic policies to "fight fair". Can both countries do this? Well if they hang on the fiction that international agreements can be enforced, they might think so. In the end of course, the country with the largest domestic market will win, as it can afford to lower its prices more than the smaller nation. The larger nation has always, with other efficiencies, more economy of scale.
Once the larger country starts to kill off domestic industries in the other nation, it has three "onerous" choices:
1. fire up "counterparts" to supply the other needy nation,
2. lend the nation more money at favourable rates to get the other nation in more trouble, or
3. start an offshore business in that nation, with attendant gov't allowances from both countries for running a favourable foreign business and hiring locals.
The US cannot lose with free trade except if its trade balance is lopsided. But if it lends money to the countries to prop up their losing industries, it will win the interest back to make up for that. All The US needs is a few years of protected trade in key industries to kill off its target industries in the other nation.
What would these domestic and target industries be? Well, it would protect its key manufacturing industries with natural advantages so that other nations do not gear up vast exporting trade into their domestic market, then it will kill off the trade that manufactures for the other nations resource industries. This is what the US needs. So once the other guy is buying all US equipment as the US manufacturers have pulled south or north to the US, the price gradually rises for the equipment until the resources are no longer profitable to harvest and sell. These resources of course are usually sold at world prices so getting the price adjusted is a bit difficult. In metals of course, the US controls the price through COMEX or its own natural demand. Where it cannot control the price, it seeks to control the cost of the foreign producer. Killing off the source of equipment is one way. NAFTA is another. "Hurt us in NAFTA, we will punish you where it hurts you most, when you are hurting most." Canada has wimpily gone along with this, killing one of its most beneficial industries, mining, to promote a real loser for it, hi-tech. Many of Canada's mining equipment suppliers have died to leave the US or Japan as the only source of ever more expensive equipment as metal prices fall.
Free trade is usually only free for those who pay least.
Every time Canada and the US has had a trade war, which is essentially what free trade competition is, they have lost mightily. For instance in 1870 the lost their entire linen industry in southern Ontario, when in response to US complaints and tariffs they reduced to zero their Linen tariff. The US linen mills with larger volume dumped in Ontario. 20 towns that were growing then died, and have remained small villages to this day, 130 years later. If we intend to head for third world status, we could not do a better job than try to compete with industries that are naturally 15 to 30 times our size. The only place Canada has found to stay alive is in the resources industry. We can mine, farm or harvest timber cheaply and sell at world prices, because costs are controlled by operation scale and world need. We have unique sources of quality and harvest conditions, if the gov't stays off our back with costs, fees and unecessary regulation.
Making colour televisions to sell to Japanese or radios to Mexico, or computer operating systems to the US does not seem to cut it. In some we cannot compete. In others we seem to lack the vision and inegrity to see how. Small minds breed smaller men.
Canada is headed to the status and wealth of a Mexico. In 100 years we will be perhaps as important internationally as say, Argentina and about as well governed. It should be pointed out that the mentioned nations have as many resources as Canada. We however, are close to the States and speak the same language. We also had good social organization, low internal strife and much foreign investment. These advantages are rapidly eroding.
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