Re: There are certain elements in American society that believe we have the best gov'tal/economic model, and want to replicate it thoughout the world as well as protect our access to oil.
Talking of oil, who'll tell the US cannon fodder in Iraq that they're barking up the wrong Xmas tree???(*) Hey GI Joe, it's CANADIAN OIL, STUPID!!!!
Amid worsening ties, Rice arrives in Canada
By Joel Brinkley The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2005
OTTAWA The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has arrived here for meetings with Prime Minister Paul Martin, who has been inveighing against the United States in recent days, saying it is making a "mockery" of trade rules, angering and humiliating Canada.
Perceived slights and misunderstandings are normal features of the United States' relationship with Canada. But Canadians and outside experts say Ottawa's view of Washington now is as strained and combative as anyone can remember.
Partly as a result, Canada is working hard to build its relationship with China, whose president, Hu Jintao, visited here last month. Some officials are saying Canada may shift a significant portion of its trade, particularly oil, from the United States to China.
Within a few years, China could well import one-quarter of the oil "that we currently send to the United States," John McCallum, the Canadian minister of natural resources, said in a television interview last week, just after returning from Beijing. He added that the current trade fight with Washington, over steep import duties on lumber from Canada, gives the negotiations with China "an extra little push."
A senior State Department official, in an interview Monday, noted that for the United States there was "a strategic advantage in getting oil from Canada," which is believed to have the world's second-largest reserves. "But petroleum is a fungible resource, and we are going to fill our energy needs from wherever we can get oil."
Rice, speaking to reporters on the plane, said she would stress the positive aspects of the relationship in her meetings with Martin and other officials. Specifically, she and aides said, she will thank Canada for aid it gave to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, for the deployment of Canadian troops to Afghanistan and to Jordan to train the Iraqi military, and for its strong cooperation on security issues after Sept. 11 attacks.
Rice said she is "absolutely prepared to discuss" the trade debate, "but it is important to keep it in perspective."
Lumber, officials said, accounts for only 3 percent of the trade; overall, the senior official noted, Canada has a $77 billion annual trade surplus with the United States. The most important source of Canada's anger are the import duties, totaling $4 billion in recent years, that the United States has imposed on Canadian softwood lumber. The United States has said that Canada subsidizes its lumber industry, forcing the Americans to impose the duties. But Canada has appealed under rules set up in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and has won every ruling, culminating in a final judgment in Canada's favor in August.
The United States has ignored those legal losses and taken the case instead to the World Trade Organization, which has ruled in Washington's favor. But Canada contends that the trade organization is not the proper legal forum and continues to demand a refund of the $4 billion, which under American law is to be paid directly to the lumber companies that are said to have been harmed.
"Instead of honoring" the final Nafta ruling in August, "the United States has decided to ignore it," Martin said in an unusually tough, uncompromising speech to the Economic Club of New York on Oct. 6. "The duties must be refunded." Washington's behavior, he added, is "nonsense, a breach of faith."
The Canadians "are upset for good reason," said Phillip Swagel, who was chief of staff for the White House Council of Economic Advisers until earlier this year. "They signed a treaty with us, and we are not abiding by it."
iht.com
(*) vicpet.com.au
Are your Pentagon freaks planning "regime change" in Canada as well???? |
