After a few days off – and we missed him – Seth Meyers is back with his regular shows. The Late Night with Seth Meyers is where we laugh about the issues that took place in our country during the day – nowadays mostly political matters – but at the same time that we laugh, we can see the light of our daily grind in a different color.
In April 27th episode, Seth Meyers took a closer look at Trump confronting Canada and North Korea, but specially at the off-the-cuff confrontation with our Canadian neighbors over softwood lumber.
Days earlier, the administration announced it would slap hefty tariffs on softwood lumber being imported from Canada. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday his agency will impose new anti-subsidy tariffs averaging 20 percent on Canadian softwood lumber imports, a move that escalated a long-running trade dispute between the two countries.
The trade case was filed at Commerce against Canadian lumber producers by their U.S. competitors, who argued that Canadian timber grown on public lands receives an effective subsidy from the government that is unavailable to the U.S. firms, who cut timber grown largely on private land.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Tuesday the White House was hoping to get the softwood lumber dispute with Canada out of the way before NAFTA renegotiations began, appearing to blame Canada for not resolving the issue sooner.
But Canada’s forest industry says there was no evidence of an American desire to get a deal prior to the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision to levy countervailing duties of between three and 24 per cent on Canadian imports.
In Vancouver, representatives from the B.C. Lumber Trade Council took issue with the U.S. characterization of Canada’s willingness to negotiate a new deal to settle the dispute.
“The challenge for us is we haven’t really had a willing dance partner on the other side,” said Susan Yurkovich, the industry association’s president. “There was no desire to get a deal on the other side.”
“The Canadian industry is not subsidized. Log costs in the United States are less than they are in Canada,” said Duncan Davies, the CEO of Interfor Corporation. “We should all understand the work of politics in this whole situation.”
Trump could withdraw from NAFTA – but he would have to give six months’ notice. And it is unclear what would happen next. The law Congress passed to enact the trade pact might remain in place, forcing Trump to wrangle with lawmakers and raising questions about the president’s authority to raise tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports.
But now we know, President Donald Trump has told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that he will not pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement “at this time”.
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In today’s Joke of the Day section, we analyze how Trump confronts Canada over softwood lumber based on A Closer Look with Seth Meyers episode.