There Is Chess With a Master

... and then there is chess with a snowboard instructor:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that increasing the price of aluminum for the United States is a bad idea for both economies.

Trudeau said his government has heard the “musings and proposals” from the U.S. about the possibility of more tariffs on aluminum, but did not confirm their validity. He said any “punitive actions” by the U.S. will simply “end up hurting Americans the same way they end up hurting Canadians.”

“What we’ve simply highlighted is: the United States needs Canadian aluminum. They do not produce enough, nowhere near enough aluminum in the States to fulfill their domestic manufacturing needs,” Trudeau said at his daily COVID-19 briefing in Ottawa on Monday.

“Therefore, if they put tariffs on Canadian aluminum, they are simply increasing the costs of inputs, necessary inputs, to their manufacturing base, which will hurt the American economy.”

Yes, about that:

The US is the primary export destination for Canada’s $13-billion aluminum industry, accounting for 83% of its trade in 2018.

**

Asked about the issue during a press conference in Mexico City on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland noted that under NAFTA, Canada is the only significant producer of aluminum with tariff-free access to the U.S. market. The new changes retain that access, she added.

But where is confidence now?

Trump will get his aluminum, either from Canada (for whom the US is the primary importer) or from Mexico (where it will be undoubtedly cheaper).

Consider how quickly Justin and his deputy dupe were quick to sign NAFTA 2.0.

I suspect some bowing will occur.




I wouldn't worry about the Americans. I would worry about the still-incoming flights from Beijing:

Despite the bleak developments, the crisis seems “different than what we saw two months ago,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, leader of the Whitehouse coronavirus task force, said on Friday. In Florida and Texas, half of confirmed new cases are in  under-35s, which Pence said was, at some level, “encouraging news,” because younger people appear less susceptible to serious outcomes.

Pence said fatalities and hospitalization rates are declining and that more testing is generating more cases. “We’re in a much better place” than the worst moments of the pandemic two months ago, he said.

It’s true that more testing reveals more cases, Colijn said. But even in younger adults COVID-19 can be severe. They can also spread the virus to the elderly and other vulnerable groups.

(Sidebar: younger groups, eh?)

Besides, it's not like we can trust our "chief public health officer".