America and Canada have one of the largest trade relations in the world.
President Donald Trump met for the first time on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We have a very distinct trade relationship with Canada,” Trump said at the press conference.
But the commercial relationship of the United States and Canada over the years were not smooth as you think. There were commercial wars, revenge business, dumping allegations and lost jobs.
“It is clear that our commercial relationship is strong … but the relationship was rock, despite the agreements we have in its place,” says Stewart Trio, editor at the Canadian Center for Politics, a research group in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.
Trump often criticized Mexico and NAFTA, and the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. But Canada rarely mentioned.
However, there were more demands for the US Football Association against Canada – almost all by American companies – more than Mexico. To this day, Canada has severe definitions against the United States, and the two sides have recently resolved only a bitter conflict over meat.
Most leaders and experts stress that trade relations between the two countries are often strong and positive. But Canada and America had a lot of battles along the way.
Now Trump wants to negotiate NAFTA, which will be at the top of his meeting with Trudeau.
1. Canada gets a problem in NAFTA more than Mexico
Listening to Trump, you may think Mexico is the bad actor in NAFTA. But since the beginning of NAFTA in 1994, there have been 39 complaints filed against Canada, almost all by American companies. The industry is known as government conflict investors, it allows companies to resolve cases under a special committee of NAFTA judges instead of local courts in Mexico, Canada or the United States
There was only 23 complaints against Mexico. (Compared, companies from Mexico and Canada have a total of 21 complaints against the United States)
An increasingly, Canada is the goal of American complaints. Since 2005, Canada has received 70 % of NAFTA’s conflict claims, according to CCPA, a Canadian research company.
2. American Wood Battle – Canada
Nava is not the only painful area. In 2002, the United States slapped a tariff of approximately 30 % on Canadian wood, claiming that Canada was “receiving” wood in the United States market. Canada refused to claim and said that the tariff costs wood companies with 30,000 jobs.
“It was a very sour point in Canadian -Canadian relations for a long time,” says Tom Welk, a professor of economics at McGill University at Montreal.
The conflict had its origins in the eighties, when the American wood companies said that their Canadian counterparts did not play.
Whether Canada has already broke the rules as a matter of conflict.
Canadian officials deny that the government supports soft wood companies in Canada. American wood companies are still claiming that they are, and the US Department of Commerce report found that Canada was providing subsidies to wood companies in 2004. He did not mention whether the subsidies were continuing.
According to the allegations, Canada has supported wood companies because the government owns many lands from which wood comes. These support – in addition to the huge wood supplies in Canada – allowed the price of wood without what American companies can impose.
The World Trade Organization eventually sided with Canada, rejected America’s demand and the two sides reached an agreement in 2006 to end the tariff.
However, the validity of this agreement and the period of its grace that followed in October ended, and the two sides returned to that again. Obama and Tudo’s departments were unable to reach a compromise before Obama left his post and is still a controversial trade issue with American wood companies that call again a tariff.
Related: “Without Nava” we will be outside the work
3.
Things became worse during the great depression. In 1930, Congress wanted to protect American jobs from world trade. So the United States slapped the definitions of all countries that ship goods to America in an attempt to protect workers.
It was called the SMOOT-HWLY law. Today, it is widely acceptable that this law made the great depression worse than it was.
Canada was angry, and took revenge more than any other country against the United States, which sparked a trade war.
“Canada was so angry … They raised their own tariffs on some products to suit the new American tariff,” according to Doug Irwin, Professor Dartmouth and author of “Smoot-Hawley and Great Depression.”
For example, the United States increased a tariff on eggs from 8 cents to 10 cents (these are prices in the thirties, after all). Canada also averaged by increasing its tariff from 3 cents to 10 cents – three times an increase.
Exports diminished sharply: In 1929, the United States exported nearly 920,000 eggs to Canada. Three years later, she charged only about 14,000 eggs, according to Irwin.
Related: Remember Smoot-Hawley: The last major trade war in America
4. Canada’s sky tariffs on eggs, poultry and milk
Quickly forward to this day. SMOOT-HWLYY has been long ago, but Canada has continued to ship a very slope tariff on American imports of eggs, chicken and milk.
For example, some definitions on eggs reach 238 % per scalin, According to To the Department of Agriculture in Canada. Some milk imports, depending on the fat content, are 292 %.
“They are so stressful that you cannot bring it. There is no American eggs in Quebec.”
According to the Canada Embassy in the United States, the reality is very different. Its officials say that despite some harsh definitions, Canada is one of the best export markets for American milk, poultry and eggs.
The United States has a tariff for some goods coming from all countries, but it is almost not almost higher than Canada.
Experts say these definitions continue to disturb some dairy and poultry farmers in the United States, some of whom face a challenge for sale in the Canadian market. But they complain that many will have changed since the definitions have been in place for decades now.
Related: This customs tariff Reagan that Trump loves to talk about
5. More cold and future presidents
Despite all these conflicts, experts confirm that this commercial relationship is still one of the best in the world.
In fact, the two countries are now interconnected, when trade conflicts sometimes erupt American companies with Canadian companies and against American lawmakers.
For example, Canadian meat producers opposed an American law asking them to generate the place where livestock was born, grew up and slaughtered. The Canadians said that the law was distinguished against its meat from selling it in the United States and taking the case to the World Trade Organization.
The World Trade Organization stood up to Canada, and last December, Congress abolished the law of brands in the field of origin. American meat producers – whose work with Canada has been intertwined – has supported their counterparts in Canada, on the pretext that the list was very stressful.
As for Trump’s suggestion to tear a NAFTA, many American and Canadian experts say it is not worth re -negotiating or ending the agreement. The three countries that are part of the agreement are soaked to each other that the dismantling of all this integration will be harmful to trade and the economic employee.
-The editor’s note: This story was originally published on August 11, 2016. We have updated it since then.
CNNMoney (New York) It was first published on February 13, 2017: 11:11 AM Et