I don't live in Alberta and Oil means nothing to me. I also have zero personal exposure to US trade deals. So don't get "cocky" making empty threats. Canada is on the upswing and saw much tougher days in the 1980s when inflation was huge, the federal debt was huge, and we had even less diversity in our economy. We got through that and we'll get through whatever happens with US trade. Like many Americans, you think you are big enough not to fail, yet in 2008/2009 you failed miserably. The economy today is international in nature, the most lucrative US firms are global firms that require global markets. Go ahead, kill NAFTA and kill the pipelines. I don't personally care, you want to be stupid well it should be entertaining watching the aftermath. Look at all the Americans on here bitching about their health care premiums who posted for years how good their medical system is. You make your choices, you have to live with the consequences.
Don't get so jumpy. Trump and others are just saying that everything is going to get looked at anew. Just be ready to have something good to say when the issue of Canadian Steel a/k/a Chinese steel comes up. And you say: "Trade deals exist because BOTH parties benefit from them. This fundamental aspect seems to be lost on many Americans." But not necessarily, a trade deal does not necessarily end out benefitting both parties simply because it exists. It needs to be reviewed as needed and a little "portfolio rebalancing" might be required. I am rooting for both Canada and Mexico. Just make sure you have something good to say and you are all set. Obama's approach was that he would just find out that the other side wanted and then do that so as to not piss anyone off. Sorry, those days are over.
I never meant we'd ship all the Oil elsewhere. We'd shutter a big part of that industry. Jobs would be lost and it would be bad for Alberta. Our economy would take a short term hit but so would yours. We'd adapt as we always do, our economy was in much worse shape in the past. The US buys the Oil because it wants it, not as a favor to Canada. However, if a country goes out of their way to be difficult by design, as Trump is doing, there are legit ways we can retaliate and Oil is not one of them. Professional services would be a big one. Canada is expanding it's trade with Europe and Asia the last 10+ years and our businesses in things like iT are expanding from tiny to something meaningful. At 36 million people we don't need to be on the scale of the US, we just need to be much better then we were in the past. I'm not a trade expert, but we are trading more with those areas of the world and new large deals were signed. Even Trump seems to have noticed declining to be in the TPP may be problematic to the US, a reversal from his post-election stance. BTW Ask the people in Lac-M how using a regional US rail carrier with spotty management worked out for them.
Actually a good portion of the Alberta oil is sent to the U.S. to be refined and then sent back to Canada as gasoline, home heating oil and other products. When you have no gas for your car and no heating oil for your home then what are you going to do? "Professional Services would be a big one" - you do realize that Canada imports many IT and professional services people from the U.S. each week to work. Very few Canadian professional services people do work for the U.S. -- good luck with your assertion.
All this told us is you skied in France, great post! Currency Wars are part of the equation and so is specialized efficient low wage labor.
In a trade war scenario, Canada would end the right for US professionals to work in Canada taking away employment opportunities for qualified Canadians. That is how protectionism works. Don't worry, we'll somehow find Oil for our cars and IT guys for our companies, we aren't really short on either in reality. Nobody is saying trade wars are good, except Trump and some of his fans. However, Canada won't roll over and play ball.
Your thinking is ten fifteen years behind the times. The U.S. has plenty of oil to the point where we exporting lots of it. We get Canadian oil for price and convenience- not need. You aren't going to shut anything down here by playing oil games. We would just cut back on exports. American oil production is at record levels, and global spot prices are down due to global surpluses, and lots and lots of natural gas is being produce in the U.S. as another factor to lessen demand on oil. You would be better off trying to form a Maple Syrup Cartel to play your strongest hand. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...world-as-shale-boom-powers-record-oil-exports
Again, I couldn't care less about Oil, I don't live in Alberta and my immediate family is in IT related careers. Toronto has an expanding IT sector ( 4th largest IT hub in North America ); maple syrup isn't even on the map. We also have the banks which seem to be buying up US interests since 2008; maybe not huge operations but pretty successful.