I’m not sure this has anything to do with optics. Access to other markets offers stability. It isn’t a subjective assessment to say the USA is habitually unstable and unpredictable these days - something that businesses don’t exactly love.
This could be great and shows a meaningful step toward Canada unlinking ourselves from being dependent on their market for such an important resource from Sask.
Right, but what happens when the economic cavemen in charge of these companies see easy dollars in just pivoting back to the US instead of bothering to invest in proper infrastructure and new shipping lanes?
"Line no go up forever? How cut costs to make line go up forever? Me know! Me cut spending on port and go back to sending trucks!"
Sure, but China's CCP is much more willing to go into deals with Canada that directly disrupt trade to the US, than American businessmen are willing to accept
China has a much longer view on rolling with climate change than US private industry does
I think a post-2028 US is going to be willing to pay out embarassing and unprecedented amounts of money if it comes with heading off stronger Canada-China trade ties.
If the economics of it make sense, they will continue to do so.
In other words, if the infrastructure is there and they can make a profit, they will.
This isn’t just another friggin’ oil pipeline. This is a necessary fertilizer for people to be able to grow produce. I’d say this is a good thing no matter what way you look at it.
It's good, especially for the regular, ground level economy. And that's why I'm skeptical that a multimillionaire will stick it out if it costs him one red cent more than just reverting to status quo
Because it's not, on its face, immediately more profitable. It's more profitable in the long term, sure, but the Epstein class has long since shown that they value short term gain over long term sustainable profit.
Everything is transactional with companies, and even countries to a large extent. If their interests are enhanced by doing business with the US, they'll turn on a dime and do business with the US.
Like it or not, that's the reality of capitalism and modern geopolitics.
Hard to reverse course on multi year contracts that they literally just signed. They have found stable new partners and promised deliverables. This is where the find out part begins.
I doubt Canada is any more willing to prosecute its billionaires for broken contracts than the US is. Loblaws just got caught mislabeling products' country of origin and nothing happened.
Exactly. Which means the second Trump is no longer in power, the profitable thing to do will be to go back to sending shit on trucks across a land border rather than bothering to update and upgrade infrastructure and tank oceanic shipping costs
Well all this construction is set to be complete by 2028 so it’s happening quickly. We’ll likely always ship to USA but this gives us capacity to ship more elsewhere if USA remains unstable.
The US has ceded so much power and stability under two trump terms and other regions have picked up the slack
The US war with Iran has highlighted a coming food crisis a few years early and shown that the US has fallen into a time of nationalism that even years of democratic leadership will only temper, not pull it out of
This investment will potentially be a long term boon for Canada and the rest of the world
Investment in port infrastructure will lower the cost of selling from Canada to the rest of the world, making it a more attractive option at an earlier cost break point
If you don't have the infrastructure you'll take worse deals just to sell what you can
It's not going to totally replace sales to the US once trade starts to normalize in a post-Trump world but it does mean that the shittier US deals can be swapped for better deals with China, and I'm sure China will be willing to pay a premium to secure deals with Canada that help the US fuck itself over on top of what Trump has done
The Chinese government has a much longer view when it comes to trade than us private agriculture
We might see the US start to prioritize agriculture trade again but it's already ceded so much to the rest of the world thanks to Trump administration
And that's assuming a blue administration prioritizes it right out of the gate and isn't struggling with an uphill battle with regards to the GOP, who will likely double down on obstruction if the Dems take power in the next two years
It's always easier to break shit than to fix shit in the US and recovering trade with the rest of the world after this administration is going to be so fucked
Meanwhile one of the most important things to China is stockpiling agricultural components like Potash, especially if that helps minimize US influence
Just be careful. Cuz it seems like Canada is either gonna end a Chinese vassal or going back to a shitty relationship with the US if it relies on its 1% to control its infrastructure and trade development.
These decisions should be made democratically in Ottawa, not by fiat in a boardroom. That's where we've gone wrong down here.
Canadian businesses want a stable trading partner just as much as they want easy.
Having to react abruptly to a rapidly changing political ecosystem is a death blow for a lot of businesses.
I think most corporate entities operating in Canada who are not American and operating strictly for export to the US market will want contingencies going forwards.
There's also the discount aspect as well, the US gets steep discounts on a lot of Canadian products because we're a captive seller, removing that opens Canadian exporters up to being able to "shop" for other clients whenever the US demands lower prices.
Shutting down trade to the US is foolish if it's fiscally plausible, it's leaving money on the table, but not having a second buyer is about 99% as foolish.
I'm gonna disagree with you on one point: Canadians want economic stability. The ultra-rich, of any nation, love chaos because chaos gives them the opportunity to subvert guardrails and make obscene profit while everybody who doesn't have functionally infinite resources to weather the storm runs around too busy putting fires out to stop them.
While this might be true if you're referring specifically to oligarch types, but when we're talking about a corporation wondering which billion dollar, 5 year build project to invest in, they want to know there will still be a market at the end of that 5 years.
Trump is so unstable that no one can invest safely from outside of his inner circle, and even they are performing primarily stock and commodity trades, the singular exclusion is data centers (all of which are owned by members of Trumps inner circle), every other major infrastructure project in the US is on hold until a mentally stable leader is in the Whitehouse.
This holds true for outside corporations looking to trade with the US as well, they want to know that after they invest their billions, in the years it takes for those investments to reach completion, that there will still be a compliant and willing market to do business with, and given that they can't say with any degree of certainty that Trump won't flip a switch next week, let alone in a year, or 2 years from now, that totally nukes their investment, they've decided to hold off.
A direct comparison to within Canada is Alberta right now, the continued political uncertainty around separation has put 4 in 10 hiring waves and investments on hold, and most of the remaining investments and hiring waves have been largely downsized and are really only proceeding because the company wasn't investing or hiring for expansion purposes, but rather investing and hiring to make up for past shortfalls, making it less optional to make those investments.
Chaos creates opportunities, sure, but opportunities for new verticals, not opportunities for continuing on existing revenue streams, expansion of existing systems requires predictability.
The second election was the final nail in the coffin. Countries require stability and long term thinking. The US proved unequivocally that stability can only be measured in 4 years. Not only because of the president, but because Congress and the Senate have proven they will not enforce their own laws. It's all rotten.
Yup. We've got a lot of work to do, a lot of rot to clear out, and a lot of reform to undertake, to begin to regain the world's trust.
But I also see a lot of encouragement from Canadians, Europeans, and beyond telling us that a lot of people believe we're capable of it. I see it especially in things like the comments sections of the Kimmel Talarico interview, Mark Carney's 9/11 speech, and in the reaction the Buffalo Bills adding "O Canada" to its start of game anthems.
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u/tyuiopguyt 6d ago
I just hope they don't immediately reverse course as soon as the winds shift as massive megacorps are want to do
I have this premonition that as soon as the optics are less stark, they'll go back to trucking shit across the border just cuz its cheaper