Canada’s view that the U.S. has a surplus undercuts Trump administration’s push on Nafta
The complexity of the statistics measuring U.S.-Canadian trade flows allows each side the ability to support its claim by choosing from an array of data.
Trump administration officials typically focus on merchandise trade balances with other countries, which don’t account for trade in services such as insurance or tourism.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s basic tally of merchandise trade with Canada lists U.S. exports at $282.4 billion and imports from Canada at $300 billion, indicating a deficit of $17.6 billion.
Canadian officials prefer to include services trade as well as merchandise. That method, which gives highly competitive American services industries credit, gives the U.S. a small surplus of $2.8 billion in 2017, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
.. The U.S. is asking Canada for a litany of changes in the Nafta talks, from big shifts in auto-industry rules to the elimination of dispute-settlement system, and Canada officials are responding with an argument tailored to Mr. Trump: Trade between the two countries is balanced, so no major changes are needed to existing Nafta provisions.
.. President Trump raised eyebrows at a fundraiser when he reportedly told guests that he recently insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, despite having “no idea” if that was in fact the case.
“Trudeau came to see me…He said, no, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday, according to a transcript published by the Washington Post. “I said wrong, Justin, you do. I didn’t even know. Gosh, I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’”
Trump Repeats False Claim About Canada After Admitting Uncertainty Over Figure
President Trump repeated on Thursday his false assertion that the United States runs a trade deficit with Canada, the morning after privately telling Republican donors that he had deliberately insisted on that claim in a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada without knowing whether it was true.
Mr. Trump’s private admission to having a loose grasp of the facts and his public refusal to back down from the incorrect statement — the United States has an overall surplus in trade with Canada — were vivid illustrations of the president’s cavalier attitude about the truth, and a reminder of how that approach has taken hold at the White House.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Trump had chosen his figures selectively in the conversation with Mr. Trudeau and in a subsequent Twitter post that repeated the claim. The president was referring only to the trade of goods, which ignores the larger trade surplus in services the United States exports to Canada, Ms. Sanders said.
And in a briefing with reporters, she acknowledged that Mr. Trump had fabricated an anecdote he told the donors about unfair trading practices — Japanese officials, he claimed, conduct a test on American cars by dropping a bowling ball on their hoods from 20 feet high, and those that dent are barred from being imported.
“Obviously, he’s joking about this particular test,” Ms. Sanders told reporters who confronted her about the veracity of the tale. “But it illustrates the creative ways some countries are able to keep American goods out of their markets.”
Her explanation came two weeks after Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that she sometimes told white lies on behalf of Mr. Trump.
The latest instance of Mr. Trump bending the truth emerged after The Washington Post published an account of the president boasting about his disingenuous exchange with Mr. Trudeau at a fund-raising dinner on Wednesday night in Missouri. On Thursday, the president refused to back down from the erroneous claim about the trade balance between the United States and Canada.
“We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive),” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. In an audio recording from the dinner obtained by The Post, a transcript of which was published on Thursday, Mr. Trump recounted how he pressed that point in a meeting with Mr. Trudeau even though he had “no idea” whether it was true.
The United States ran a trade surplus of $600 million in goods and services with Canada in January, according to the Commerce Department
.. But during the fund-raiser for a Senate candidate in Missouri, Mr. Trump said he had refused to concede the point in a meeting with Mr. Trudeau, as the prime minister repeatedly pushed back.
“He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none; Donald, please,’” Mr. Trump told the donors according to the transcript, calling Mr. Trudeau a “nice guy, good-looking.”
“I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know,” Mr. Trump said. “I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid.”
Mr. Trump’s retelling drew rebukes from some diplomats and lawmakers who argued that it reflected a dangerous penchant by the commander in chief to misrepresent the truth.
“The president’s admission that he’s literally making things up while speaking face-to-face with a world leader should stop us all in our tracks,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York and the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. “How can any other government — ally or adversary — have any confidence in what our president says when he admits to lying?”
During the conversation, the president said he and Mr. Trudeau had tangled repeatedly about the trade balance, with the prime minister saying, “Nope, we have no trade deficit,” and Mr. Trump ultimately sending an aide to, “Check, because I can’t believe it.”
The president then claimed that his contention had been validated, appearing to quote an aide he said had told him, “‘Well sir you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. But when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ It’s incredible.”
.. Officials in Mr. Trump’s administration insisted that the United States runs a steel trade deficit with Canada even though data from both governments show that trade is balanced.
.. Mr. Trump’s top trade negotiators have presented a list of demands for revising Nafta that Canada has declared unacceptable. Mr. Trudeau has said that Canada is prepared to abandon Nafta rather than accept a “bad deal” and Mr. Trump has similarly threatened to withdraw from the pact.
.. Bruce A. Heyman, the United States ambassador to Canada under President Barack Obama, said that Mr. Trump’s approach was “creating a crisis where none existed before.”
“Lying to your friends only hurts the relationship,” Mr. Heyman wrote on Twitter. “Canada has been there for us thru thick and thin. How can you just casually damage this realtionship?”
Why Are Mutual Fund Fees So High? This Billionaire Knows
Mr. Baron’s mutual funds charge some of the higher investment fees around, and the fees have held steady despite a $1 trillion exodus out of old-school mutual funds into cheaper, better performing rivals that track a variety of indexes and investment styles.
In a global economy where competition and Amazonian price destruction have forced companies to cater to cost-wary customers, the mutual fund industry is a rare outlier. Fees on most actively managed mutual funds, which house the retirement savings and other assets of millions of Americans, have barely budged.
The reasons for that — quiescent mutual fund boards, complacent investors and a general unwillingness to call a halt to one of the great gravy trains in financial history — are all visible inside Mr. Baron’s fund family.
.. An old-fashioned stock picker, Mr. Baron achieved renown in the 1990s and the 2000s for successfully betting on small companies.
.. Mr. Baron, 74, is perhaps best known for his annual investment conference, now held at the Metropolitan Opera House at New York’s Lincoln Center and in its 26th year. Mixing rock stars, pop entertainment (Barbra Streisand and Paul McCartney have performed in the past), patriotism (this year celebrated the 100th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s birth) and triumphant chief executives, the gala is a giddy ode to American capitalism
.. Mr. Baron is unapologetic about the high fees. He argues that his skills and experience — and the arduous task of researching small growth companies — justify the fees.
.. “Since inception, 98 percent of our funds have beaten their benchmark,” he said in an interview. “If you want the lowest fee, you should not invest with us.”
.. But if you want to bet on American growth stocks, “you can double your money in 10 years,” he said. He frequently sticks with his top picks for decades.
.. Mr. Baron believes that the true measure of his success is performance since his fund’s launch in 1994.
.. Industry experts say there are several reasons that active mutual fund fees have not succumbed to broader pricing trends in the economy.
.. The first is their power. While more than $1 trillion has left higher-fee funds in favor of passive competitors, that still leaves some $10 trillion. That generates about $100 billion in fees for fund companies. And it suggests they don’t need to cut fees to retain assets.
.. With funds’ multiple share classes, varying structures and oceans of boilerplate, even sophisticated investors may not realize they are paying up for a laggard.
.. allege that trustees are not pushing hard enough for lower fees.
.. At the Baron fund family, the fee oversight is complicated by the fact that Mr. Baron, the largest shareholder in the investment company and the manager of its largest fund, has a financial incentive to keep fees high.
.. “Compensation based on fees is worrisome,”
.. “Kicking and scratching is unlikely to lower fees but certainly will antagonize the manager, which is the one institution that can arrange for the trustees’ dismissal. Besides, trustees will tell themselves, if a fund’s fees really are too high, the market will sort things out and investors simply won’t invest in the fund.”
.. In 1982, after a stint as a Wall Street analyst, he founded his investment firm.
His timing was perfect. It was the start of a bull market, and he developed an expertise in picking small companies that would grow into big ones such as Charles Schwab, Vail Management Company and Tesla.
.. It was the heyday of the individual stock picker. Peter Lynch at Fidelity and Bill Miller at Legg Mason gained cultlike followings
.. his annual investor gala, which he pays for himself, that defines him. Onstage, he cultivates a grandfatherly mien, bragging about how much money the chief executives of his portfolio companies made for Baron shareholders. His chief maxim is “We invest in people,” and he treats management as family.
.. he offered to connect her with his longtime tax lawyer. “It’s incredible what he has done,” Mr. Baron said
An Evangelical Crack-Up?
What is going to happen to American Evangelicalism in the wake of the Roy Moore defeat? Christianity Today editor Mark Galli, in an editorial, says nothing good.Excerpts:
No matter the outcome of today’s special election in Alabama for a coveted US Senate seat, there is already one loser: Christian faith. When it comes to either matters of life and death or personal commitments of the human heart, no one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation. Christianity’s integrity is severely tarnished.
.. The Christian leaders who have excused, ignored, or justified his unscrupulous behavior and his indecent rhetoric have only given credence to their critics who accuse them of hypocrisy.
.. David Brody, a correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network, has noted the desperation and urgency felt throughout much of conservative Christianity. “The way evangelicals see the world, the culture is not only slipping away—it’s slipping away in all caps, with four exclamation points after that. It’s going to you-know-what in a handbasket.” The logic is then inexorable: “Where does that leave evangelicals? It leaves them with a choice. Do they sacrifice a little bit of that ethical guideline they’ve used in the past in exchange for what they believe is saving the culture?”
.. If evangelical means that, it has serious ramifications for the work of Christians and churches.”
That notion is bewildering to evangelical leaders who see Mr. Trump as their champion. They say that Mr. Trump has given them more access than any president in recent memory, and has done more to advance their agenda, by appointing judges who are likely to rule against abortion and gay rights; by channeling government funds to private religious schools; by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and by calling for the elimination of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches and charitable groups from endorsing political candidates.
.. “I believe that God answered our prayers in a way we didn’t expect, for a person we didn’t even necessarily like,” said Stephen E. Strang, author of “God and Donald Trump” and founder of Charisma Media, a Christian publishing house.
“Christians believe in redemption and forgiveness, so they’re willing to give Donald Trump a chance,” said Mr. Strang, who is a member of the president’s informal council of evangelical advisers. “If he turns out to be a lecher like Bill Clinton, or dishonest in some kind of way, in a way that’s proven, you’ll see the support fade as quick as it came.”
Mr. Strang said that those who talk about Mr. Trump tarnishing the evangelical brand “are not really believers — they’re not with us, anyway.”
.. You cannot underestimate the impact of being raised to think that morality was so important that impeachment was justified, and then see the very same people who instilled that belief in you to jump into bed with Donald Trump–a man just as morally debauched as Clinton, but without the advantage of competency or even enough of a sense of decency to know that his lecherous behavior isn’t something to brag about.
.. The key problem is in, as Galli says it, “the desperation and urgency felt throughout much of conservative Christianity.” The New Testament tells us repeatedly, in many different ways and through the examples of the apostles, that Christians should not fear or worry — and certainly not feel desperation! — even in the face of persecution. I was glad to see that he addressed the proper scriptural ways of dealing with such situations: turning the other cheek, forgiving, and doing good to our enemies.
Christians who rationalize compromising our testimony out of desperation are simply not trusting the one they claim to follow.
.. for the first time I can remember, the appearance of Danielite and Johannine apocalyptic imagery in both sermons and discussions on the left. (This isn’t entirely unwelcome, and I think it’s totally appropriate about environmental stewardship, but I am more interested in seeing the left pull the right out of their foxhole than in the left digging our own.)
.. “evangelical” seems to have been co-opted as a political label and makes no distinction between a theological disposition and a cultural identifier. It seems, anymore, to simply mean “non-mainline Protestants,”
.. The older Evangelicals are treading on dangerous ground and alienating their next generation by putting political power over living by Christ’s example.
.. The fault line in the schism is whether one takes a culture war-dominionist posture or faithful minority counterculture posture. This fault line — which also divides Christian generations — has lain hidden for a while, but Trump has exposed it, because the dominionists think they can use the Strongman for their own purposes and, maybe, by being his chaplaincy, even make a true believer of him.
The counterculturalists — usually younger evangelicals — think that’s a delusional misreading both of Trump and of the actual standing of Christianity in our nation, and that in the meantime going all-in with this Administration means shredding theological clarity and moral credibility.
.. In terms of Trump he is politician and in a rare moment of listening to his advisers, Paul Manafort was right that Mike Pence was correct choice for VP to ensure the evangelical vote came out for him.
.. But as they explain it, it was because of the supreme court, lesser of two evils, etc. Fine. I get that. What I don’t get is people trying to make Trump out to be the last best hope for the evangelical church.
.. In this sense, Trump and Roy Moore are in the tradition of the Emperor Constantine, whose interest in Christianity was purely for its use as a political tool. Ever since Constantine, there have always been Machiavellian leaders who used the Church for their own cynical purposes, and there will always be such leaders.
.. I suspect “evangelicals” were among the many “Christians” a few years ago who professed to see no contradiction between Christianity and the ideas of Ayn Rand. In other words, many self-identified “evangelicals” are really just identifying their cultural background, not their theology. (And they don’t know their theology.)
.. However, I think that evagelicals were already hated by elite culture
.. “There is no way we can please them, they are going to hate us no matter what. We might as well support the bad ass who will fight for us, or at least not ramp up the persecution of elite culture against us.”
.. This strategy will also most likely fail, since Trump is likely to fail, and horribly. But I understand the despair and desperation that motivates it.
.. I’m one such libertarian, who recently left the PCA for the ECUSA. I felt that the social conservatives were becoming a professional liability for me. If I agreed with them, that would be fine. But I don’t. I don’t believe in criminalizing early-term abortion and I’m fine with civil same-sex marriage. And I’m not willing to suffer socially for views that I don’t hold and that IMO represent bad policy.