Maybe we can just tweak this situation while discussing the twits who Twitter. And why does Donald Trump’s White House menagerie remind us of that awful daytime TV serial, The Young and the Restless?
Quickly though, before the next episode in this ongoing saga, did you cotton on to Donald Trump’s strategy with Prime Minister Trudeau? Trump was actually suggesting that since he and Trudeau were the good guys, the two white men could gang up on the smaller Mexican. Trump is an old hand at ‘divide and conquer.’ It is one of the oldest ploys in the developers’ book.
And if Trudeau was foolish enough to go along with Trump, the one thing he can count on: Canada would be next! Trudeau has to ensure that any so-called ‘tweaking’ of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is done with three parties at the table. It will not really be two against one. You have to remember that the U.S. has about three times the population of Mexico and Mexico has about three times the population of Canada. It is only in gross domestic product that Canada becomes the second step.
And while Canada does considerable trade with Mexico, the substantial deficit in payments in pesos for Canada would be better balanced if Canadians stopped taking winter vacations in Mexico—or a lot more Mexicans visited Canada.
The real problem with the trade between Mexico and the U.S. is not the lack of a wall between the two countries but the barriers that do exist. The extremes of the income disparities in Mexico and the mean-spirited deals of American manufacturers are seriously suppressing Mexican labour rates. Today, they are forcing Mexican labour to accept a much lower wage rate than that to which they are really entitled. If the drug cartels in Mexico, for example, could turn their attention to labour organization in their own country, they could potentially become rich, legitimate, perform a worthwhile service and raise the average income to living wages.
Alternatively, if Donald Trump was the least bit sincere about his pledge to make America great again, all he would have to do is refuse to import any product into the U.S.A. that used any labour that is paid less than 60 per cent of that paid to the average American manufacturing employee.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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