The US government has held Canada hostage to its unilateral and one-sided trade policies for long enough, said Communist Party leader Liz Rowley responding to the US trade tariffs slapped on Canadian steel and aluminum May 31st.
“It’s time to get out of a one-sided trading relationship where the US coughs and Canada gets pneumonia,” said Rowley.
“US tariffs on steel and aluminum are going to cost thousands of Canadian workers their jobs and livelihoods in the mines and mills and in the Canadian industries and manufacturing sectors that they supply.
“And why? Because Liberal and Tory governments over the last 30 years have signed onto trade deals like NAFTA that tie 80% of Canada’s trade to the US, leaving workers and the whole country to the tender mercies of US corporate diktat and the whims of unstable and dangerous US administrations like that of Donald Trump – the President who thinks Canada is a threat to US national security.
“It’s time for Canada to cut and run. Instead of continuing the virtually exclusive – and threatening – bi-lateral trade ‘relationship’ with the US that’s choking us today, we need a new trade policy based on mutually beneficial, and multi-lateral trade with the world.
“Canada could and should have a much stronger trading relationship with China, the second largest economy in the world, but the federal government nixed that last week when it refused to allow the Chinese government-owned Aecon to bid on infrastructure projects in Canada for reasons of ‘national security’.
“If it’s national security the Liberals are worried about, they better worry about the US. That’s where the real and immediate threat to Canadian jobs and security comes from.
“If it’s trade policy, the Liberals should look beyond the end of their noses. The world’s a big place. And there are a lot of countries who are more than willing to trade with Canada on the basis of mutual benefit and fair trade – something the US administration knows nothing about. “ Rowley said.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada