Implications of Recent Us Protectionism for Canada-Us Relations

Contents

I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….1

II. Background………………………………………………………………………....1

1. What is protectionism………………………………………………………..…1

2. The effects of protectionism……………………………………………………2

3. Recent US protectionism…………………………………………………...…..3

3.1 The Canada-US Softwood Lumber dispute…………………………...….3

3.2 US energy protectionism………………………………………………....6

3.3 Buy America provisions…………………………………………….……7

3.4 Country of Origin Labeling (COOL)……………………………….……8

III. Implications of recent US protectionism for Canada-US relation………………...9

1. Reduced trade and economic dependence ……………………………………..9

2. Canada looks for other trading partners in the world…………………………12

3. Job loss……………………………………………………………………..…14

4. Retaliation………………………………………………………………….....14

5. Less scope for specialization……………………………………………….…15

IV. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..15

Implications of recent US protectionism for Canada-US relations

I. Introduction

Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border with each other. They are the closest neighbor in North America so that trade is easier, more convenient, less expensive between them. Since the free trade agreement between Canada and United States came into force, their trade has more than doubled. The trade between these two countries support millions of jobs in each country and sustain each country's standard of living. In Canada case, one in five jobs depend on export, either directly or indirectly. In the US case, nearly 9 million US jobs depend on trade and investment with Canada. Therefore they are vital trading partners with each other.

However, with the rise of US protectionism, Canada-US relations are affected more or less even though they are still important trading partners with each other. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section two introduces some background of trade protectionism, which include the definition of protectionism, the effects of...