Mark Carney was in Hamilton yesterday to announce plans to help the steel industry given the state of the Trump tariffs, which largely consisted of protectionist measures to support the industry from cheap imports being dumped into our market—particularly if they are looking to use Canada to avoid the US tariffs. To that end, countries that Canada has free trade agreements with can continue exporting to Canada up to 2024 levels, after which point they are subject to 50 percent tariffs. Countries who don’t have trade deals—including China and India—are subject to the 50 percent tariff once they hit 50 percent of 2024 levels, and anything coming from China is subject to an additional 25 percent tariff, unless they are coming from the US. There is also a $10 billion loan programme for liquidity support, and more measures for EI support and retraining steelworkers. The industry is largely happy with this, but do note that some free trade countries still dump steel in our market. (Full breakdown of measures here).
Carney also said that any potential trade deal (which isn’t going to happen) could include quotas on softwood lumber as a way of resolving that long-standing issue, but remained vague and non-committal about it.
Meanwhile, Carney is telling Crown Corporations and government-funded entities to “find your own savings” of up to 15 percent, which is going to be pretty hard when most of them are already operating bare-bones. Canada Post is on the verge of bankruptcy, VIA Rail doesn’t have a lot to cut if it’s trying to recapitalise for the proposed High-Frequency/High-Speed Rail expansion, and he told CBC he would boost their funding as he’s now telling them to find savings. There are some exemptions, like the courts (which are already largely underfunded), and Parliament, but this kind of austerity is not going to be good for anyone, whether in the short or long-term, and he needs to start thinking about a course correction because this is going to further reduce capacity to do anything in this country.
Ukraine Dispatch
Russia attacked Ukraine with over 400 drones early Wednesday, and later in the day, bombed Dobropillia while shoppers were out in the early evening, killing two and injuring over 27. Trump giving Russia 50 days to come to a ceasefire just means Russia will spend the summer trying to keep wearing down Ukraine. President Zelenskyy says he wants at least half of Ukraine’s weapons to be produced domestically within the next six months.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1945532910058054106