Friday, April 30, 2004
NAFTA Lumber Ruling?:
So NAFTA has ruled in Canada's favor regarding the seemingly endless lumber dispute between Canada and the U.S. I don't see how this is really going to change anything. Rulings have been granted in Canada's favor by just about everyone else by now, yet the conflict goes on. Essentially, the American's say that Canada supports it's lumber industry by granting unfairly low cut fees. Canada disputes this and as has been stated have won pretty much every challenge made to the American's resulting trade sanctions. In the end it has all had no affect to date as the American position has not changed, big surprise. I suspect it still wont. Why? Because the American's have demonstrated more times than can be counted that they care very little for the opinions of others and will follow there own " National Interests" regardless of the cost to the rest of us. They are the big bullies on the block, and will remain so until another one comes along to knock them down.
So NAFTA has ruled in Canada's favor regarding the seemingly endless lumber dispute between Canada and the U.S. I don't see how this is really going to change anything. Rulings have been granted in Canada's favor by just about everyone else by now, yet the conflict goes on. Essentially, the American's say that Canada supports it's lumber industry by granting unfairly low cut fees. Canada disputes this and as has been stated have won pretty much every challenge made to the American's resulting trade sanctions. In the end it has all had no affect to date as the American position has not changed, big surprise. I suspect it still wont. Why? Because the American's have demonstrated more times than can be counted that they care very little for the opinions of others and will follow there own " National Interests" regardless of the cost to the rest of us. They are the big bullies on the block, and will remain so until another one comes along to knock them down.
# posted by Wil Smith : 3:43 p.m.
