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For all its faults, the United States consumer market is still biggest and best by far
The United States has been booming in recent months, a fact that most partisan Republicans and Democrats can agree on, even though they fiercely disagree on who deserves the credit.
But the big question remains: Is this the end of the line? In shipping, the source of the boom has been obvious, as it has been artificial. The Sino-American trade war has prompted much sabre rattling and tariff talk so shippers have been shipping as much as they can over tariff-free seas for as long as they could.
But now the New Year has come and gone we are laid up in a slack season in the midst of a deadly calm, waiting upon events not knowing if are facing one of those wretched "new normal" or a trade revival that is just around the corner.
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Fitting Mexico into the new NAFTA, or USMCA, may well have outcomes no one could have ever imagined
The very name, "United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement", the USMCA, the re-jigged NAFTA replacement, is the soul of flexibility if nothing else. It introduces the possibility of additions and subtractions that the "North America Free Trade Agreement" (NAFTA) precluded because of its limited geographical scope.
For a time, when Canada was vainly trying to reinforce its towering tariff wall against the intrusion of US dairy and poultry imports, when only Mexico was on board, the media were cheerfully referred to the making of the "United States-Mexico Trade Agreement".
If one get comfortable with a Canadian subtraction, should we not be prepared for a British addition when the UK leaves the European Union and needs somewhere to go? Thinking further ahead, perhaps Quebec, the French-speaking Canadian province would be happier in an expanded EU?
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Irresistable US meets immoveable China in a Sino-American trade war of unexpected consequences
Despite the tariffs raining down in the Sino-American trade war, Chinese containerised imports have continued to flood across US docks much to the surprise of some and to the dismay of others.
As London's Financial Times pointed out, America’s merchandise trade deficit with China jumped 4.3 per cent to a seasonally adjusted US$37 billion - a record high.
The increase was an eight per cent rise in US imports from China, while US exports to China remained flat. And that wasn’t just an anomaly. In the third quarter, America’s deficit with China soared to $106 billion, up from $93 billion in the same period last year.
For the year to September, America’s trade deficit with China increased to $305 billion, up from $276.6 billion last year.
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China cargo using St Lawrence Seaway via Suez to get to Chicago under serious consideration
FROM the very first the St Lawrence Seaway was expected to fulfill dreams and nightmares of those it would enrich or impoverish. To those who saw the dark side, it was the death knell of the Port of Montreal, then the biggest port outside New York in 1959.
Montrealers feared its role at the head of inland navigation on the St Lawrence was at an end. No longer would the Lachine Rapids block the way to all but shallow-bottomed boats. Most freight bypassed this obstacle by barge using the 10-mile Lachine Canal, built in the 1820s, that was no wider than a four lane highway.
Curiously, the canal gets its name from the French word for China (La Chine). French explorers sought to find a route from New France to the Western Sea, and from there to China, and hence the name.
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