While it seems like forever to us, these kinds of diplomatic trade battles usually take several years to settle, not just a little over a year. Of course, President Trump wasn’t around before now, pushing people’s buttons and impatiently demanding results like a business tycoon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a major point that the […] Read more
Eureka! At last, we have a renegotiated NAFTA
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
Down to the bitter end
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
I’ve talked to a lot of cattlemen across America in the last year. To a man, or woman, they are not comfortable with some of President Trump’s brash New York style. Of course, one has to remember how his business career forged him. He has dealt with wealthy, egotistical national and international property owners; tough […] Read more
Two economies, two theories
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
In May 1983’s G7 Summit, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl asked President Reagan to “Tell us about the American miracle.” Kohl was referring to America’s booming economy while the rest of the world was floundering. Reagan explained that cutting tax rates incentivized citizens and businesses, stimulated economic growth and eventually increased total tax return to the […] Read more
A lackluster summer for NAFTA
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
You might well have seen President Trump in recent weeks all over the world (North Korea, G7 Summit in Quebec, NATO meetings and Helsinki, Finland with Vladimir Putin). You might not have seen him at campaign events in West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota and elsewhere, if Canadian TV doesn’t carry those hugely successful events. The point […] Read more
NAFTA brinkmanship fails to meet deadlines
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
The politicians promised we would know whether or not we were going to have a new NAFTA agreement by early May. Frankly, President Trump had it in his hands. The most important issue (gauged by the time invested in it), auto assembly and auto parts, has been discussed for weeks now, long enough that negotiators must have […] Read more
Is fortune smiling on NAFTA?
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
If fortune is smiling on Canada this spring, you will be reading this column for clues as to how an agreement in principle was finally forged on renegotiating NAFTA. For months now we’ve been tracking the convergence of numerous factors that were pointing towards a do or die situation either this spring or in 2019. […] Read more
An eventful week for trade
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
Canadians could be forgiven if they felt they dodged a bullet the first full week in March. Early in that week, President Trump announced blanket foreign steel tariffs of 25 per cent and 10 per cent on aluminum. Canada not only supplies half of the steel imported into the U.S. but half of American exports […] Read more
NAFTA, traceability and electronic logs
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
It’s not so much that the longer this NAFTA negotiation goes on, the less we know. It’s more like the more things we never thought of, or ones we didn’t know we needed to know that come up. For example, now that it is becoming more likely that negotiations are going to drag on for […] Read more
Better signs for NAFTA
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
In early January some hope for a new and improved NAFTA agreement was buried in the political and media bombast in Washington, D.C. At first glance, the release of the book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, had little to do with trade and NAFTA. We were fooled, however, because we knew only […] Read more
NAFTA notes and a warning
Free Market Reflections with Steve Dittmer
[UPDATED: Jan. 23, 2018 with ‘COMMENT’ at bottom] January 2018. The global economy is improving. The U.S. economy, drawing on Trump optimism, anticipated tax reform and more competitive American businesses seeing some profits, which should benefit Canadian businesses. U.S. beef demand is holding up decently in the face of increased supply. The 800-pound gorilla in […] Read more
Canadian Cattlemen Presents: Depth of Field
