alt Hacker News70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?
Replies
Because the US is going to throw Poland under the bus without even considering once if it yields a short-term benefit.
Exports are really easy to move and replace, as has been proven again and again in the past two years. Turns out that imports can be far trickier and pose larger problems to an economy.
Deals right now are intended to increase the trades between Canada and reducing those with the US, in little improvement steps.
If in 10 years the ratio moves from 70/6 to 50/26, the situation will be vastly different.
The options are not black and white
Isn't the point that there already is one?
So the assumption is trading with Canada = trade war with US? Canada is abused pretty hard it seems...
Because the US is wreaking havoc world wide. The US cannot be trusted anymore.
Better remove the bandaid now then wait until you are screwed.
People now see China as the reliable partner. This will be a multigenerational change.
It's not that they want to enter a trade war with Trump, it's that there's large room for growth in trade between Canada and Poland (your example).
Since Trump is hostile to trade with both parties there's an opportunity to replace lost US trade that's probably not coming back.
Trump has weakened himself and his allies where as mutual trade between Canada and the EU makes both stronger.
Because Trump is trade warring everyone.
The middle democracies will do better fighting together and not deal with US individually.
Funny, to justify Brexit numbers like these were meaningless
Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic.
Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import.
Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
Because the US is likely to ally with Russia over Poland.
If "70% of Canadian exports are to the US", that's probably why the US has so much leverage, and I can see why the Canadian government would like a change. Hence the need for a rebalancing of trade partnerships.