Winston Churchill once observed, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing – after they have tried everything else.”On trade policy, the Trump administration is still in the phase of trying everything else phase. As the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments were nearing the end of their third round of re-negotiations in Ottawa, the U.S. Commerce Department proposed a 219.63% tariff on the import of certain commercial airliners made by the Canadian company Bombardier. Commerce said the tariff, known as a countervailing duty, was justified because the governments of Canada and Quebec Province improperly subsidized Bombardier to the detriment of Boeing. The Commerce Department’s proposal angered the Canadian government. So, not only does the administration want to punish Bombardier, it wants to make sure the company can’t use NAFTA to defend itself.

Source: Forbes October 02, 2017 17:13 UTC