Tag Archives: trade deals
Trade Deals: Maine Lobster industry fears lost sales from ramped-up Canadian exports
A new trade deal looming between Canada and the European Union is setting off alarm bells in the Maine lobster industry. The deal between Canada and the EU – the largest seafood consumer market in the world – would eliminate tariffs on Canadian lobster exports into Europe and give the Maritimes a competitive advantage over their American counterparts, who would be stuck selling lobsters with tariffs ranging from 8 percent for a live lobster to 20 percent on processed or cooked lobster. A weak Canadian dollar, which is now valued at about 75 percent of a U.S. dollar, will only make Canadian lobster that much more attractive to importers in the 28 member nations of the European Union, which is the second biggest importer of American lobsters, second only to Canada, according to trade data. In 2016, the EU imported $152 million worth of lobsters from the U.S., most of it from Maine. continue reading the story here 08:07
Why trade deals like CETA have become a ‘whipping boy’ for anti-globalization forces
Globalization has always had its critics — there’s nothing new there, says Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. But given the problems Europe is experiencing now, with high levels of unemployment, particularly among youth, it’s not surprising that free trade deals like the Canada-EU CETA have become “a whipping boy for very unhappy people who are out of work,” Hampson said. And that’s why the backlash against the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, he said, is symptomatic of growing anti-globalization sentiments, and may well have played a role in the decision by Belgium’s Wallonia socialist government to scuttle the trade pact between Canada and the 28-nation bloc. Read the rest here 11:33
