NY Times: “The price for this top-of-the-line trim: an eye-popping $35,000. That’s if you’re in China. Made by Geely, this smooth-riding, driver-pampering crossover The New York Times tested for 10 days in February would cost more than twice that from any brand with an American showroom. Geely, founded in China just 28 years ago, now sells almost as many vehicles worldwide as the 123-year-old Ford Motor Company.
Category: Trade (Page 7 of 19)
European finance officials blindsided by Trump administration’s surprise invitation of Russia to G20
European financial leaders staged a diplomatic revolt on Monday after the Trump administration blindsided allies by inviting sanctioned Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to attend a U.S.-hosted G20 finance meeting in person, reports Kyiv Post.
The meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, marks the first time Russia’s top financial official has attended a G20 gathering in person since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The surprise invitation by the U.S., which currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, triggered immediate backlash from European delegates who have spent years trying to maintain Russia’s global economic isolation.
AFP: US draws European pushback with Russia G-20 finance invite
Politico: Trump welcomes Russia back to the G20. Europe isn’t having it.
Reuters: Bessent told Russian minister no economic relief until Ukraine war ends, source says
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a snarky response to threats of retaliation from Prime Minister Mark Carney about new tariffs and the attempted rebranding of Lake Ontario.
On August 22, Trump imposed a steep 50% tariff on an estimated $28 billion of Canadian goods — including beer, cheese, and electronics — on top of existing duties on aluminum, lumber, vehicles, and steel.
Sweden’s defence material administration on Monday signed an order for four Naval Group navy frigates during a ceremony in Stockholm attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
Sweden in May said it would order the vessels from the French company in a $4 billion deal that will triple its air defence capacity in the face of security threats in the Baltic Sea.
Sweden, NATO’s newest member, is racing to build up its military in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The first of the four new frigates, which will be the Swedish navy’s biggest ships, is expected to be delivered in 2030.
Reuters: Sweden inks French war ship order
Prime Minister Mark Carney rightly walked away from a bad deal that he knew Canadians wouldn’t buy, write Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan in Policy Magazine.
Sovereignty – not trade – was on the table when American demands included dictating Canadian cultural and digital policy, eroding French language rights, enshrining privileged access to Canadian critical minerals and oil, and demanding an effective veto over future trade agreements that Canada might wish to sign.
Statistics Canada: Production of crude oil and equivalent products increased 3.1% year over year to 25.6 million cubic metres in June, with growth from both oil extraction (non-oil sands) (+4.7%) and oil sands extraction (+1.1%). June marks the 13th consecutive month of year-over-year production gains.
Christopher Ragan, the founding director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and former chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission put it this way: “Canada is in a set of negotiations with a party that appears to be unpredictable, volatile, so I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going to work here.”
Don Drummond, former chief economist for TD Bank, said if Canadians are willing to suffer the consequences, there are plenty of ways to punch back at the U.S., writes Peter Zimonjic at CBC News.
The unlikely transformation of an economist and central banker with no prior electoral experience into a powerful global politician has bucked precedent and expectations. But Carney has settled into the role he warned was necessary for the country, that of a wartime leader standing up to an erratic and vindictive adversary who seems hellbent on subjugating Canada.
“We cannot accept what they have offered, and we will not give what they have asked,” he said.
For those who have worked with the demanding – and, at times, temperamental – central banker, such a calculated refusal to accede to a bad deal comes as little surprise.
The Guardian: ‘You’re at war when you get attacked’: Mark Carney shows combative nature in face-off with Trump
The White House approached the meetings less as a negotiation between two partners than as an effort to force tribute from a vassal. Trump portrayed his decision to change the previously agreed terms of trade between the two countries as a righting of past wrongs. But in reality, it’s part of something much more profound: a U.S. effort to ensure its economic interests and physical security in the Western Hemisphere by coercion, rather than through alliances and soft power.
This is further underpinned by an ideology that assumes the U.S. has a natural right to correct what Trump and his supporters consider aberrations of geopolitical history. So, Greenland should naturally belong to the U.S., and would already if not for some absurd American decisions at the end of World War II. Canada isn’t a real country, but rightly the 51st US state. The Gulf of Mexico was really the Gulf of America all along — and now, Lake Ontario is Lake America, too. If we’re to believe Prime Minister Mark Carney about why the U.S.-Canada talks collapsed, it’s because Washington made last-minute demands to dictate Canada’s domestic language policies and destroy its car-manufacturing industry.
Bloomberg: Trump Is Copying Putin’s Losing Playbook With Canada
Bloomberg article is also archived.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, explaining why Canada decided to abandon the talks, pointed to disunity among the US negotiators. The White House has denied claims of division between Greer and Lutnick, but seasoned commentators are skeptical.
“Lutnick viewed all this as his turf, and here is Greer, who is the designated guy to be effectively the trade minister if you think about it in the context of other countries, conducting the negotiations,” said William Reinsch, a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former undersecretary for commerce. “It appears Greer was willing to go farther than Lutnick was.
The Guardian: As US-Canada tensions flare, who’s calling the shots in Trump’s trade team?