The Pacific Coast province wants the federal government to ban the shipment of U.S. thermal coal bound for customers in Asia.
.. U.S. producers have shipped thermal coal, used by power plants to produce electricity, to British Columbia export terminals due to a lack of U.S. capacity in U.S. ports. The British Columbia government estimates that last year the Port of Vancouver handled 6.2 million metric tons of U.S. thermal coal.
.. Cloud Lake Energy Inc., a Gillette, Wyoming coal producer which ships thermal coal to foreign customers via Westshore’s Vancouver terminal, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ultrafiltered Milk Sparks a U.S.-Canada Trade Battle
The dispute over the protein product, used primarily for making cheese, could have ripple effects in global dairy markets
U.S. dairy farmers and processors in Wisconsin, New York and Minnesota have been hurt by a newly adopted Canadian pricing policy that encourages Canadian dairies to buy certain types of milk products domestically. The specific product in the trade dispute is a milk-protein concentrate called ultrafiltered milk that is used primarily in cheese-making to increase yields.
In 2016, the U.S. exported $102 million in ultrafiltered milk to Canada, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. But industry observers estimate that exports have dropped to near zero since February, when Canada created a nationwide dairy classification that lowered the price of Canadian milk used to make ultrafiltered milk.
.. “If you take Nafta away, all of a sudden it gets more expensive to sell U.S. agriculture products,”.. Nafta has been very good for U.S. farmers, Mr. Newton says, and pulling out could have all kinds of negative effects, such as Mexico shifting corn purchases from the U.S. to South America, or losing an important market for rice... Because Canada has relatively strict dairy policies and a supply-management system that controls the amount of milk that reaches market, experts say U.S. milk tends to be cheaper than Canadian milk... the demand from Canadian cheesemakers for U.S. milk proteins like ultrafiltered milk, a relatively new milk protein that was developed well after Nafta was put in place.There are no explicit terms in the treaty for dealing with ultrafiltered milk, since it doesn’t fit into any of the dairy chapters that existed when Nafta was signed... “We have been producing more and more milk in the upper Midwest, and we’ve reached a point where other processors are full to the gills,”.. “For the industry, there is not going to be much of an impact,” Mr. Gould says. “But for individual farmers, it will be devastating.”
Why Donald Trump Decided to Back Off Nafta Threat
“It was a trial balloon, but it didn’t work,” said Mexican economist Luis de la Calle, a trade expert who had been a senior negotiator on the pact. “Next time, nobody will believe it. People start to figure things out.”
But Mr. Trump said in the interview that he still holds his strongest card. “We’ll terminate Nafta if we’re unable to make a deal, but hopefully we won’t have to do that.”
By Trashing Mexico, Trump Hurts the U.S.
Without Nafta, American businesses would lose protection from populism south of the border.
In contrast, Mr. Trump’s approach seems almost designed to help elect an anti-American, pro-Castro populist, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to the Mexican presidency in 2018... Today’s illegal immigrants are coming primarily from Central America. Washington should cooperate with Mexico to create a multistage defense. Working with Mexico to strengthen law enforcement, the rule of law, and intelligence would leave both countries better positioned to stop drug traffickers, criminals, human smugglers and terrorists.Insulting Mexico, on the other hand, will make it impossible for politicians there to work with Yankee gringos. A hostile Mexico can ignore the flow of people northward, while American policies that weaken investment and growth in Mexico simply create more incentives for Mexicans to migrate to the U.S... Mr. Trump’s great wall would be a waste of money, as conservative Republicans from border states now acknowledge. A combination of fencing, additional border police, electronic surveillance and other intelligence tools would stop illegal immigration more effectively and at a lower cost.
.. because Nafta’s energy terms refer to Mexico’s constitution, American investors are now protected against a populist reversal of Mexican policy—but only as long as the U.S. remains in Nafta... U.S. producers seeking to compete with Asian and European manufacturers now transfer components across North American borders up to 14 times in the process of completing final goods. More than 30% of Mexico’s exports to the U.S. contribute to the integrated auto sector...Yet when the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation recalculated trade statistics to count only the value added by each country, the U.S. had a surplus in manufactured goods with Mexico and Canada... the alliance of the three North American democracies—being energy self-sufficient with integrated infrastructure and efficient and secure borders—could offer the U.S. a resilient and powerful base from which to face global challenges... William Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state and the man with the vision to purchase Alaska, wrote in 1853 that someday Mexico, Canada and the U.S. would create a North American union, but only after a long process and solely through free choice. Seward fought for America’s national union while also promoting an internationalist vision.