November 26, 2024

After more than 40 years of neoclassical neoliberalism seeming to work (for Capital), Liberals in Canada have lived in eternal optimism.

The feeling is that the world always progresses along a single line and no one can really stop that. Sure, there may be bumps in the road, but as long as you do what you are told by bankers and the occasional sociopath who has their hands on the oil taps, everything is going to be OK.

Sure, the Left likes to complain that things are not moving "fast enough." The Left said that the party would not last; you cannot keep creating pretend "wealth" by transferring it from the public sector to the private sector, and that exporting a product that slowly kills the climate isn't great "future proofing." At some point, you run out of room. But what does that even mean? And anyway, right now feels pretty good.

Well, the rules have changed and the fascists have caught the bizarre clique of Free Trade/Free Market True Believers in the Canadian government's bureaucracy by complete surprise.

25% tariff on ALL products

The Tories are the ones who put those True Believers in place and the Liberals kept them there because it is easier just to go with it than to do something different.

If you do not think that the above story is true, read some of the notes that the bureaucracy is putting out. They are hoping that this is "just" a negotiation tactic. As if that makes anything better.

“Even if this is a negotiating strategy, I don’t see what Canada has to offer that Trump is not already getting,” said Carlo Dade at the Canada West Foundation.

We now are facing down the barrel of tariffs from our main trading partner, to be thrown up by an individual who thinks it is funny to threaten entire economies during late-night fast-food sugar high-driven social media rants.

Trump is focusing on Fentanyl and the "Invasion" of "Illegal Aliens" in what will likely be declared an "emergency" to give Trump the power to deal with it "legally."

This is despite the fact that it is very well known that the vast (90%) majority of Fetanyl is being imported by standard American citizens using de minimis China-America trade. This was caused by raising individual import limits.

(And, "illegal" immigration has almost nothing to do with anything Trump talks about.)

Some precursor products go through Mexico to the USA.

Most Fentanyl products go into Mexico from the USA.

The truth in the lie is that, of course, a tiny amount passes from Canada to the USA. Canada has its own Fentanyl problem.

Do any of these facts matter? No.

Instead of engaging in the serious and hard politics of response, everyone is tying themselves into knots trying to deal with the crazy by pretending to agree with the falsehoods.

Shortly after Trump’s post, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau contacted the president-elect and the two leaders had a phone call to discuss border security and trade, according to a government official with knowledge of the matter.

However, traders pushed Canada's currency value down 0.9%. Because it is a real risk, not a "maybe if" risk.

The reason is that while 25% is ridiculously high, it leaves lots of room to be still devastating. Almost any increase in tariffs on goods from Canada makes an already precarious position bad. Private investment in Canada is already subject to market forces that make it almost impossible for Canada to build things that the USA can build.

The countries are so alike in production that investors ask why would you invest in Canada when you can invest in the USA? There is usually a pretty good reason and cheaper labour isn't it.

This is where we have to go full circle.

The free trade True Believers in the Canadian government say things like "Canada is a trading nation." That's not true. Canadian companies trade in goods, not the state. And Canadian companies are driven by private capital interests—usually American capital interests.

Canada is a nation of people. We create things and we extract things from our natural environment and companies export raw materials and we are forced to buy things made with those raw materials made elsewhere.

It does not have to be that way, it is that way because the government got out of the way of export-driven economic activity in the name of free trade and agreements to keep some manufacturing that didn't want to leave.

The answer is the same as the one outlined by the Left critique of neoliberalism for the previous 40 years, and the materialist left critique of the quasi-Keynesian policies of the previous 70 years.

It is not about propping up capital. It is about securing an economy that produces the things you need on your own if possible, and ensuring trade with those places that produce the things you cannot.

This regime is not free-market/free-trade, it is a program of strategic industrial policy. One where we do not simply assume that because things are fine today, they will be fine tomorrow.

The pivot point has arrived, whether Liberals like it or not. We are back to a point where the only way to ensure secure supply chains of goods is through strategic coordinated intervention in the economy.

We used to do that in Canada. It is why we used to have numerous coops and "Crown Corporations" producing things—because private capital could not be bothered to invest.

Does anyone even remember what that means? Does the Left even remember how to call for it?