For me the most striking thing about this was before the Brexit referendum there was rhetoric about how the UK would form a CANZUK alliance with free movement of people and goods between these countries, forming a sort of English speaking EU.
Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members which is unlikely anyway (deeper ties are definitely on the table though), these sort of announcements should put to bed these complete and utter fantasies the UK has about leading some alternative world order where it's in charge and can go toe to toe with the EU.
Even many British would agree that Brexit was full of absolute lies, and even to this day you still see them being repeated in certain circles. These weren't even possibilities.
It is a total fantasy that Australia would throw back in with the ghost empire that is the UK. They literally have nothing to offer us apart from a figurehead head of state.
Australian here. Theres no way we’re joining the EU. Brussels is on the other side of the planet from Australia. Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe. Europe is too far away.
U.S. goods and services (exports plus imports) trade with Australia totaled an estimated $102.0 billion in 2025, up 15.6 percent ($13.8 billion) from 2024.
Brussels and DC are almost the same distance from Canberra.
Yes. We’re not interested in joining the EU. And we’re not interested in becoming a US state.
But trade doesn’t need to go all the way to DC. By plane, Sydney to LA is about - 13.5 hours. Sydney to Brussels is 20 hours. I imagine the difference is even greater for cargo ships, which can sail directly through the pacific. I have no idea how cargo goes from Australia to Europe. That sounds like a complex route.
As for trade, the US is important but they’re not our most important trading partner. China accounts for $326 billion aud in trade annually. If your numbers are right, that’s more than our trade with the US and Europe combined.
I suspect integrating into the EU single market wouldn’t be worth it for us. We’re not part of Europe. We’re not a European country.
The article isn't about joining the EU (as the original post you replied to called it, "unlikely anyway").
But trade doesn’t need to go all the way to DC.
Nor Brussels; Perth to Greece via the Suez cuts the time, too.
As for trade, the US is important but they’re not our most important trading partner.
OK, but the EU and US trade with Australia roughly equivalently per the numbers, and you said "Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe." It's just a flatly false claim.
Chill, nobody said anything about Oz joining the EU. We live in quite different time zones. A free trade agreement on the other hand might work. Canada has one if the remaining 10 EU state would bother to actually ratify it.
AN AU-EU free trade agreement has been negotiated, with the deal agreed in March 2026. It’s now making its way through both sides‘ political processes.
Did you read TFA (the Reuters one) that quotes the Australian trade minister? Or are you somehow more involved in determining trade agreements than the minister?
Trump has upended decades of stable trade relationships. I would not assume anything right now.
(To be clear, neither Canada nor Australia are claimed to be seeking to be EU members - but closer trade ties with the EU appear to be on the cards for both nations. When you can no longer trust the US to act in good faith, everything changes.)
I suspect it'll be expanding the current trading agreement to allow more direct investment. Canada and Australia both have lots of raw materials the EU needs. I suspect you'll see more types of worker visas (similar to the old NAFTA T1 styles that allow relatively easy sponsorship of employees).
I'd love to have full rights to live and work in the EU, but I'd be happy just being able to visit the EU as a Canadian and use the EU customs lines. I don't think Canada would go for full mobility. We're just now dealing with the backlash of too many immigrants from South Asia, a "flood" of poorer Eastern Europeans would probably rekindle that.
Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members which is unlikely anyway
And like I point out, deeper ties are definitely on the table which is more like what will happen. The world is reorganising around US tariffs as a natural economic reaction here.
Russia and the US seek to expand by invasion, at the same time there are NINE countries with a stated ambition to join the European Union, and now there seem to be even more countries who want to "more closely align" with the EU (whatever that means).
Whenever countries consider their needs and desires, and what they want their country to be, they look at the countries of Europe - not at Russia, not at the US, and not at China.
More good reliable friends is always better, and fuck the unreliable backstabbing ones as much as possible and reasonable, future will sort out details. World is not static, alliances change and we may revert in future if US population decides it wants to be ruled over by more reasonable, respectable and kind people.
We have a trade war currently. Direct intersection of those 2 concerns. Some provinces are more open to trade with US while others become manic at the mention of it.
Having 2 groups working on related problems independently does not solve anything.
Of course the 2% of items not included are pretty substantial; agricultural products with strict quotas.
There's also strict country of origin rules so if too many materials are sourced outside Canada, even if its made in Canada it can be subject to tariffs. Not to mention needing to adhere to EU standards.
Agriculture is always the hardest due to a variety of factors, including standards, but also farming is among the most subsidized and/or protected businesses in the developed world. Creating a fair and level trading system around it is difficult.
A good example is the dairy protectionism in Canada that Trump so bitterly complains about. The issue is Canada manages its system with production quotas, but the US directly and indirectly subsidizes production. Who's being more (un)fair? How do you create a trading relationship around that?
One difference is in the US they subsidize corn, which makes it cheaper domestically and the support farmers get makes them more competitive on global markets. Canada does supply control on dairy, which drives up prices domestically and prevents competition. There's a reason one is called a cartel.
Creating a fair and level trading system around it is difficult.
There are no real limitations outside of dairy, poultry, and eggs; same as on the US front. If it is so difficult why is there nothing in place, aside from those three categories? Are these the only food categories that matter to people? What about the food that the animals in those categories eat?
but the US directly and indirectly subsidizes production.
Since the Obama era, the US and Canada have had essentially the same subsidy system, save dairy, poultry, and eggs, which, as you pointed out, get their own special rules. But as you pointed out they are still subsidized indirectly via things like corn subsidies, which is where Canada and the US are now effectively on the same page (that wasn't always the case, of course, but the reforms happened a long time ago now and what went on 30 years ago doesn't mean much anymore). When cooler heads prevailed the US played fair in aligning their system to Canada's, so why isn't the same being willing to be offered in kind? Changing the diary, poultry, and egg system doesn't mean giving up subsidies, if the people want to continue to offer subsidies. The US model already offers a way to provide that. Canada already accepts that for other food products, so there is nothing unprecedented there.
Of course, it's not really about the farmers/production, is it? It is about protecting Saputo, Lactalis, and Agropur's triopoly.
Changing the diary, poultry, and egg system doesn't mean giving up subsidies, if the people want to continue to offer subsidies.
The US subsidies tend to be more indirect, meaning that the large agri-corporations capture most of it. Farmers in the US have been struggling for years and the Canadian farmers know this (and for better or for worse have political capital at their disposal).
The reason dairy, poultry, and eggs are under Canada's system is because they are not bulk commodities that ship around the world like grains do. Canada also doesn't allow a lot of the farming methods (including hormones) that the USA does. The original aim of supply management was to smooth out the market, but of course has morphed into a cartel.
For the record, I'd love to see the dismantling of supply management the same way New Zealand did (and became an export powerhouse of processed dairy products after). I do love me some cheese and I wish the EU cheese was more economically available.
The US subsidies tend to be more indirect, meaning that the large agri-corporations capture most of it.
It's essentially the same system, with the primary subsidy being paying 60% of crop insurance premium in Canada and 62% in the US. Of course since crop insurance is acre-based, those with the largest landholdings capture most of the subsidy, but that is equally true in Canada. It's probably true that the US has some larger farms, given the much larger arable landbase (and one of Canada's largest farms just having recently gone bankrupt!), which is what I expect you are trying to say, but I'm not sure how pertinent that is as it is still an equal payout on a relative scale.
they are not bulk commodities that ship around the world like grains do.
Neither is milk from other animals (e.g. goats), other types of meats (e.g. pork, beef), etc. but none of these have the same system. Moreover, until 2009 tobacco was also supply managed under the same system and it is a bulk commodity that is shipped around the world. So I'm not sure your theory, as fun as it is, holds.
Canada also doesn't allow a lot of the farming methods (including hormones) that the USA does.
It's a mixed bag. Canada puts higher value on animal welfare, but is much more lax when it comes to things like pesticides. The US doesn't allow hormone use in poultry, so that doesn't really explain what purpose supply management serves either.
No it's not. For bulk commodities, the US subsidies are largely commodity-specific and acre-based; Canadian support is whole-farm and income-based. US subsidies trigger when income margins fall below a set percentage; an Iowa farmer with base acres gets a price loss coverage payment whenever the national corn price is low, good year or not. A Canadian prairie farmer with a good year gets nothing regardless of wheat prices. In the US, most of the money goes to row-crop growers on large acreages, increasingly through discretionary ad hoc payments. In Canada, most money goes to prairie grain and oilseed farms through yield-triggered insurance. If you excluded dairy, US subsidies account for about ~9% of farm receipts (plus or minus a quarter percent depending on year) and Canada ~5% (long term average; payouts tend to spike in bad years).
Swinging to dairy, the US actually sets price floors for wholesale dairy and transfers revenue across processed dairy types. The US system also pays out directly to farmers if margins fall too much (the calculations of said margins is complicated, but it essentially encourages production even if prices fall due to oversupply). These subsidies have historically encouraged overproduction and consolidation and the issue has become acute as the rates of dairy consumption hasn't matched population growth due to a variety of reasons (eg veganism, milk alternatives, etc). One reason Trump has been complaining is because the US would love to have somewhere to dump said surplus.
The Canadian dairy system (which I want to make abundantly clear I'm not defending!), basically links pricing against a hard quota. The result is higher prices for consumers, and tariffs that make unique foreign cheeses very expensive.
Neither is milk from other animals (e.g. goats), other types of meats (e.g. pork, beef), but none of these have the same system. Moreover, until 2009 tobacco was also supply managed under the same system and it is a bulk commodity that is shipped around the world. So I'm not sure your theory, as fun as it is, holds.
... this doesn't explain what is special about the three (once four) agriculture categories.
Because it's political! Tobacco farmers used to be a force to be reckoned with, but when smoking rates plummeted they lost a lot of said power. Other forms of dairy were niche enough not to matter. Bulk meat (beef, pork, etc) are a relatively recent phenomenon and were part of a world trade market by then, whereas chicken, milk, and eggs were considered a staple.
If you're a Canadian dairy farmer, the US system looks like it encourages production above all else and the subsidies are structured enough where a large one-off issue (herd sickness, serious equipment breakdown, etc) will wipe you out. The number of US dairy farms is down almost 80% since the 1990s and it's been driven by low margins. Canadian farmers have a lot more of a direct influence on their government (again for better or for worse).
This is what I meant when I said "Creating a fair and level trading system around it is difficult" because you run up against these interests. I would much prefer a theoretical fair trade system where Canada didn't protect its poultry/dairy and the US didn't protect its sugar (which has a lot of similarities to CA dairy supply management, though the foreign import limits are proportionately less).
For bulk commodities, the US subsidies are largely commodity-specific and acre-based
Again, the largest component is crop insurance, which is modelled essentially the same as it is in Canada. ~60% of the premium is paid for by the government in both cases. The payout is dependent upon acres.
The number of US dairy farms is down almost 80% since the 1990s
And 74% in Canada, for what it is worth.
If you're a Canadian dairy farmer
Not anymore. I am among the 74%. The double-edged sword with the stability offered by supply management is that it makes borrowing much easier (effectively government-guaranteed cashflow), which pushes the price of everything higher, so the economics aren't all that great unless you sold your $100,000 per acre farm in the Netherlands or Germany to pay for it.
the US system looks like it encourages production above all else
I am not sure I would say that. Co-ops with quota-like systems are not uncommon in the US. What their system does allow is that one guy who thinks he can undercut the prevailing market to slide in, while Canada has a legal path to put a halt to such behaviour. Maybe that's something favourable, but why only in dairy, poultry, and eggs? Isn't that something that every market would want?
Canadian farmers have a lot more of a direct influence on their government
I do remain a Canadian farmer, though, so I would love for you to expand upon that thought.
Because it's political!
This is quite a deviation from the bulk commodity/farming practice explanation before. Why the change in tune?
That, and Quebec farmers and food security. Federal Politicians need rural votes to win elections and keep Quebec from separating. Also food security is important to any nation. And in light of what tRump has done it looks like and even more important goal.
It has always surprised me that the 'free world', NATO countries, developed countries (including Japan, Taiwan, Australia), however one wants to call them, do not have at least free trade, if not free movement of people and capital, between them.
A travesty, IMO. And a great loss making us all poorer. Not a patchwork of point-to-point free trade agreements, but several hub agreements that countries join, and, in time, the hubs agree to free trade between them too.
The EU is specifically European - its in the name. Many of the arguments for the Eu that came up during Brexit were based on the importance of geographical proximity and shared culture.
The EU is specifically European - its in the name.
I don't disagree, but by this standard North Korea is a democratic republic, and Turkey's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bit odd.
The politics of this is grindingly difficult; people think of "them and us", not "we're all together in three free world". Achieving free trade means either dismantling all the little market carve-outs that local politics relies on, or enshrining them in the collective (EU farming policy).
Imagine trying to integrate the politics of Japanese rice farming into the CAP.
Well, let's say you sell online, no matter what you're selling, you need to apply the PST/HST of the province the buyer's address is in. And then you need to file a tax return for every province you sell to. Now some provinces have a sales threshold under which you don't need to do a separate tax return, others don't. Some have an HST collected by the Federal government, others don't. And all the PST/HST rates are different. This also applies to digital goods, SaaS, etc...
The US has higher thresholds in every state and no federal sales tax, and buyers pay the duties.
Food and especially liquor continue to have stupid barriers between provinces. But intra-provincial trade increases every year and the CMRA legislation from last year should improve that.
There are no tariffs between Canadian provinces and never have been.
No. You claimed Canada doesn't have free trade internally. The most common barriers to free trade are tariffs. IME tariffs and duties are what most people think of as non-free trade. Witness the current US-Canada trade war. I can order lots of things from all around the world and the main resistance to me doing that are tariffs and duties, wouldn't you agree?
I'm clarifying that the trade barriers on things like liquor and food between Canadian provinces are regulations, not tariffs.
Trade barriers are trade barriers. Free trade means no barriers, not no tariffs specifically. Anything that makes doing business in another province more difficult than regular operation in your own province is a barrier to trade.
Agree completely. The most common barriers to trade are tariffs and I'm glad we don't have those within Canada. The next most common barriers are regulatory and legislative and we've got those but the good news is (unlike the US-Canada trend lately) those barriers are diminishing (at a government pace) in a consistent trend over time.
I'm not aware of steps backwards (as in US-Canada relations) where barriers between provinces increased. Am I wrong to be optimistic?
An "expanded" Schengen Area that crosses the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and brings Canada, Australia (and Japan, maybe?) into the fold would be an incredible thing. I'm all for it.
It would be nice, but it's too high a bar to set, as the visa policies differ significantly between the three.
There is a real danger the Schengen agreement itself will collapse in the upcoming years - Germany is already ignoring both the Schengen agreement and its own courts by keeping border controls.
Australia and the European Union signed a free trade agreement in March after eight years of negotiations, removing tariffs on almost all goods and potentially easing EU access to Australian critical minerals.
Reuters left out the most interesting part which is to allow service providers to work on either side and four year visas (which include work) in both directions.
This is a positive sign: free-minded, aligned, progressive nations clustering together. Suggested next steps are to form a single market, military, issue common trade currency, move off US dollar, stop trading with the US, thereby restoring sovereignty and enacting your own laws etc.
All, of course, is a ramp to eventually shunning the US: the global bully.
The reddit post links to: https://www.reuters.com/business/australia-on-same-page-cana...
Ooops, I meant to link Reuters, not Reddit. @mods, could you change?
Tags do not work, email mods, email in footer ("contact").
For me the most striking thing about this was before the Brexit referendum there was rhetoric about how the UK would form a CANZUK alliance with free movement of people and goods between these countries, forming a sort of English speaking EU.
Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members which is unlikely anyway (deeper ties are definitely on the table though), these sort of announcements should put to bed these complete and utter fantasies the UK has about leading some alternative world order where it's in charge and can go toe to toe with the EU.
https://boris-johnson.com/2013/08/25/the-aussies-are-just-li...
https://www.ippr.org/articles/could-the-idea-of-the-anglosph...
Even many British would agree that Brexit was full of absolute lies, and even to this day you still see them being repeated in certain circles. These weren't even possibilities.
It is a total fantasy that Australia would throw back in with the ghost empire that is the UK. They literally have nothing to offer us apart from a figurehead head of state.
Australian here. Theres no way we’re joining the EU. Brussels is on the other side of the planet from Australia. Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe. Europe is too far away.
Brussels and DC are almost the same distance from Canberra.
(Also Australian, but living in the US.)
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/au...
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-australia...
(That's $105B in FreedomBucks, and excludes the UK.)
Yes. We’re not interested in joining the EU. And we’re not interested in becoming a US state.
But trade doesn’t need to go all the way to DC. By plane, Sydney to LA is about - 13.5 hours. Sydney to Brussels is 20 hours. I imagine the difference is even greater for cargo ships, which can sail directly through the pacific. I have no idea how cargo goes from Australia to Europe. That sounds like a complex route.
As for trade, the US is important but they’re not our most important trading partner. China accounts for $326 billion aud in trade annually. If your numbers are right, that’s more than our trade with the US and Europe combined.
I suspect integrating into the EU single market wouldn’t be worth it for us. We’re not part of Europe. We’re not a European country.
https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/china/china-country-brief
The article isn't about joining the EU (as the original post you replied to called it, "unlikely anyway").
Nor Brussels; Perth to Greece via the Suez cuts the time, too.
OK, but the EU and US trade with Australia roughly equivalently per the numbers, and you said "Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe." It's just a flatly false claim.
Chill, nobody said anything about Oz joining the EU. We live in quite different time zones. A free trade agreement on the other hand might work. Canada has one if the remaining 10 EU state would bother to actually ratify it.
AN AU-EU free trade agreement has been negotiated, with the deal agreed in March 2026. It’s now making its way through both sides‘ political processes.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/trade/eu-australia-trade...
https://www.austrade.gov.au/en/how-we-can-help-you/australia...
Did you read TFA (the Reuters one) that quotes the Australian trade minister? Or are you somehow more involved in determining trade agreements than the minister?
Trump has upended decades of stable trade relationships. I would not assume anything right now.
(To be clear, neither Canada nor Australia are claimed to be seeking to be EU members - but closer trade ties with the EU appear to be on the cards for both nations. When you can no longer trust the US to act in good faith, everything changes.)
I suspect it'll be expanding the current trading agreement to allow more direct investment. Canada and Australia both have lots of raw materials the EU needs. I suspect you'll see more types of worker visas (similar to the old NAFTA T1 styles that allow relatively easy sponsorship of employees).
I'd love to have full rights to live and work in the EU, but I'd be happy just being able to visit the EU as a Canadian and use the EU customs lines. I don't think Canada would go for full mobility. We're just now dealing with the backlash of too many immigrants from South Asia, a "flood" of poorer Eastern Europeans would probably rekindle that.
You might have missed this bit:
And like I point out, deeper ties are definitely on the table which is more like what will happen. The world is reorganising around US tariffs as a natural economic reaction here.
"Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members"
The European project is bigger than the EU - that's just the central core.
There's also the EFTA, EEA, CEFTA, CU, Eurozone, Shengen, CoE, and Swiss-style bilateral treaties.
See https://thisbugslife.com/2021/05/10/graphic-representation-o...
Canada can easily find a home one of these.
You might have missed this bit:
[flagged]
Please don't engage in politicial/ideological battle on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Too bad those countries are so far apart even if they've once been part of the same empire.
Amazing, let's please do Japan and Taiwan next.
Japan ambassador in Romania said just that in an interview.
Russia and the US seek to expand by invasion, at the same time there are NINE countries with a stated ambition to join the European Union, and now there seem to be even more countries who want to "more closely align" with the EU (whatever that means).
Whenever countries consider their needs and desires, and what they want their country to be, they look at the countries of Europe - not at Russia, not at the US, and not at China.
Japan and Taiwan are culturally very foreign unlike Australia and Canada. If we add them we might as well add the whole globe.
LOL Canada should seek deeper internal alliances first. Since 2015, every year the QoL gets worse.
Why not both? Perfection is the enemy of good.
More good reliable friends is always better, and fuck the unreliable backstabbing ones as much as possible and reasonable, future will sort out details. World is not static, alliances change and we may revert in future if US population decides it wants to be ruled over by more reasonable, respectable and kind people.
There is a group of people in canada which takes care of QoL and another group of people taking care of external relationships and trade.
And normally this helps a country?
We have a trade war currently. Direct intersection of those 2 concerns. Some provinces are more open to trade with US while others become manic at the mention of it.
Having 2 groups working on related problems independently does not solve anything.
Canada has long had a very good free trade deal with the EU, which eliminated 98% of tariffs in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...
Of course the 2% of items not included are pretty substantial; agricultural products with strict quotas.
There's also strict country of origin rules so if too many materials are sourced outside Canada, even if its made in Canada it can be subject to tariffs. Not to mention needing to adhere to EU standards.
Agriculture is always the hardest due to a variety of factors, including standards, but also farming is among the most subsidized and/or protected businesses in the developed world. Creating a fair and level trading system around it is difficult.
A good example is the dairy protectionism in Canada that Trump so bitterly complains about. The issue is Canada manages its system with production quotas, but the US directly and indirectly subsidizes production. Who's being more (un)fair? How do you create a trading relationship around that?
One difference is in the US they subsidize corn, which makes it cheaper domestically and the support farmers get makes them more competitive on global markets. Canada does supply control on dairy, which drives up prices domestically and prevents competition. There's a reason one is called a cartel.
There are no real limitations outside of dairy, poultry, and eggs; same as on the US front. If it is so difficult why is there nothing in place, aside from those three categories? Are these the only food categories that matter to people? What about the food that the animals in those categories eat?
Since the Obama era, the US and Canada have had essentially the same subsidy system, save dairy, poultry, and eggs, which, as you pointed out, get their own special rules. But as you pointed out they are still subsidized indirectly via things like corn subsidies, which is where Canada and the US are now effectively on the same page (that wasn't always the case, of course, but the reforms happened a long time ago now and what went on 30 years ago doesn't mean much anymore). When cooler heads prevailed the US played fair in aligning their system to Canada's, so why isn't the same being willing to be offered in kind? Changing the diary, poultry, and egg system doesn't mean giving up subsidies, if the people want to continue to offer subsidies. The US model already offers a way to provide that. Canada already accepts that for other food products, so there is nothing unprecedented there.
Of course, it's not really about the farmers/production, is it? It is about protecting Saputo, Lactalis, and Agropur's triopoly.
The US subsidies tend to be more indirect, meaning that the large agri-corporations capture most of it. Farmers in the US have been struggling for years and the Canadian farmers know this (and for better or for worse have political capital at their disposal).
The reason dairy, poultry, and eggs are under Canada's system is because they are not bulk commodities that ship around the world like grains do. Canada also doesn't allow a lot of the farming methods (including hormones) that the USA does. The original aim of supply management was to smooth out the market, but of course has morphed into a cartel.
For the record, I'd love to see the dismantling of supply management the same way New Zealand did (and became an export powerhouse of processed dairy products after). I do love me some cheese and I wish the EU cheese was more economically available.
It's essentially the same system, with the primary subsidy being paying 60% of crop insurance premium in Canada and 62% in the US. Of course since crop insurance is acre-based, those with the largest landholdings capture most of the subsidy, but that is equally true in Canada. It's probably true that the US has some larger farms, given the much larger arable landbase (and one of Canada's largest farms just having recently gone bankrupt!), which is what I expect you are trying to say, but I'm not sure how pertinent that is as it is still an equal payout on a relative scale.
Neither is milk from other animals (e.g. goats), other types of meats (e.g. pork, beef), etc. but none of these have the same system. Moreover, until 2009 tobacco was also supply managed under the same system and it is a bulk commodity that is shipped around the world. So I'm not sure your theory, as fun as it is, holds.
It's a mixed bag. Canada puts higher value on animal welfare, but is much more lax when it comes to things like pesticides. The US doesn't allow hormone use in poultry, so that doesn't really explain what purpose supply management serves either.
No it's not. For bulk commodities, the US subsidies are largely commodity-specific and acre-based; Canadian support is whole-farm and income-based. US subsidies trigger when income margins fall below a set percentage; an Iowa farmer with base acres gets a price loss coverage payment whenever the national corn price is low, good year or not. A Canadian prairie farmer with a good year gets nothing regardless of wheat prices. In the US, most of the money goes to row-crop growers on large acreages, increasingly through discretionary ad hoc payments. In Canada, most money goes to prairie grain and oilseed farms through yield-triggered insurance. If you excluded dairy, US subsidies account for about ~9% of farm receipts (plus or minus a quarter percent depending on year) and Canada ~5% (long term average; payouts tend to spike in bad years).
Swinging to dairy, the US actually sets price floors for wholesale dairy and transfers revenue across processed dairy types. The US system also pays out directly to farmers if margins fall too much (the calculations of said margins is complicated, but it essentially encourages production even if prices fall due to oversupply). These subsidies have historically encouraged overproduction and consolidation and the issue has become acute as the rates of dairy consumption hasn't matched population growth due to a variety of reasons (eg veganism, milk alternatives, etc). One reason Trump has been complaining is because the US would love to have somewhere to dump said surplus.
The Canadian dairy system (which I want to make abundantly clear I'm not defending!), basically links pricing against a hard quota. The result is higher prices for consumers, and tariffs that make unique foreign cheeses very expensive.
Because it's political! Tobacco farmers used to be a force to be reckoned with, but when smoking rates plummeted they lost a lot of said power. Other forms of dairy were niche enough not to matter. Bulk meat (beef, pork, etc) are a relatively recent phenomenon and were part of a world trade market by then, whereas chicken, milk, and eggs were considered a staple.
If you're a Canadian dairy farmer, the US system looks like it encourages production above all else and the subsidies are structured enough where a large one-off issue (herd sickness, serious equipment breakdown, etc) will wipe you out. The number of US dairy farms is down almost 80% since the 1990s and it's been driven by low margins. Canadian farmers have a lot more of a direct influence on their government (again for better or for worse).
This is what I meant when I said "Creating a fair and level trading system around it is difficult" because you run up against these interests. I would much prefer a theoretical fair trade system where Canada didn't protect its poultry/dairy and the US didn't protect its sugar (which has a lot of similarities to CA dairy supply management, though the foreign import limits are proportionately less).
Again, the largest component is crop insurance, which is modelled essentially the same as it is in Canada. ~60% of the premium is paid for by the government in both cases. The payout is dependent upon acres.
And 74% in Canada, for what it is worth.
Not anymore. I am among the 74%. The double-edged sword with the stability offered by supply management is that it makes borrowing much easier (effectively government-guaranteed cashflow), which pushes the price of everything higher, so the economics aren't all that great unless you sold your $100,000 per acre farm in the Netherlands or Germany to pay for it.
I am not sure I would say that. Co-ops with quota-like systems are not uncommon in the US. What their system does allow is that one guy who thinks he can undercut the prevailing market to slide in, while Canada has a legal path to put a halt to such behaviour. Maybe that's something favourable, but why only in dairy, poultry, and eggs? Isn't that something that every market would want?
I do remain a Canadian farmer, though, so I would love for you to expand upon that thought.
This is quite a deviation from the bulk commodity/farming practice explanation before. Why the change in tune?
That, and Quebec farmers and food security. Federal Politicians need rural votes to win elections and keep Quebec from separating. Also food security is important to any nation. And in light of what tRump has done it looks like and even more important goal.
It has always surprised me that the 'free world', NATO countries, developed countries (including Japan, Taiwan, Australia), however one wants to call them, do not have at least free trade, if not free movement of people and capital, between them.
A travesty, IMO. And a great loss making us all poorer. Not a patchwork of point-to-point free trade agreements, but several hub agreements that countries join, and, in time, the hubs agree to free trade between them too.
I guess that's what the EU is trying to be.
The EU is specifically European - its in the name. Many of the arguments for the Eu that came up during Brexit were based on the importance of geographical proximity and shared culture.
I don't disagree, but by this standard North Korea is a democratic republic, and Turkey's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bit odd.
The EU has also been pushing for free trade agreements, tho (the Canada one, mercosur, the abortive US one).
Yes,but it also does not want more than free trade with anyone outside Europe.
The schengen zone is exactly this hub agreement isn't it?
Is Schen-zen a city in China?
Edit: The OP wrote 'schenzen' instead of 'schengen' before. That was the joke. Invisible now.
IIRC schengen zone is about people, not about goods. There are like 10 almost overlaping zones. This is a map recently posted by amenghra:
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in...
Even this one understates it; it’s missing the special customs zone with Turkey.
And from another comment, they should add Eurovision too :)
And there are the frontiers of Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
The politics of this is grindingly difficult; people think of "them and us", not "we're all together in three free world". Achieving free trade means either dismantling all the little market carve-outs that local politics relies on, or enshrining them in the collective (EU farming policy).
Imagine trying to integrate the politics of Japanese rice farming into the CAP.
Canada doesn't even have free trade internally... It's literally easier to sell to the US or EU than to another province.
It'd depend on what you're selling, surely? I've never had any problems of this sort with basic retail product, for example
Well, let's say you sell online, no matter what you're selling, you need to apply the PST/HST of the province the buyer's address is in. And then you need to file a tax return for every province you sell to. Now some provinces have a sales threshold under which you don't need to do a separate tax return, others don't. Some have an HST collected by the Federal government, others don't. And all the PST/HST rates are different. This also applies to digital goods, SaaS, etc...
The US has higher thresholds in every state and no federal sales tax, and buyers pay the duties.
Food and especially liquor continue to have stupid barriers between provinces. But intra-provincial trade increases every year and the CMRA legislation from last year should improve that.
There are no tariffs between Canadian provinces and never have been.
Did I say there were?
No. You claimed Canada doesn't have free trade internally. The most common barriers to free trade are tariffs. IME tariffs and duties are what most people think of as non-free trade. Witness the current US-Canada trade war. I can order lots of things from all around the world and the main resistance to me doing that are tariffs and duties, wouldn't you agree?
I'm clarifying that the trade barriers on things like liquor and food between Canadian provinces are regulations, not tariffs.
Trade barriers are trade barriers. Free trade means no barriers, not no tariffs specifically. Anything that makes doing business in another province more difficult than regular operation in your own province is a barrier to trade.
Agree completely. The most common barriers to trade are tariffs and I'm glad we don't have those within Canada. The next most common barriers are regulatory and legislative and we've got those but the good news is (unlike the US-Canada trend lately) those barriers are diminishing (at a government pace) in a consistent trend over time.
I'm not aware of steps backwards (as in US-Canada relations) where barriers between provinces increased. Am I wrong to be optimistic?
PRC's trade surplus is pushing for a wide customs union. This is a part of this trend.
An "expanded" Schengen Area that crosses the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and brings Canada, Australia (and Japan, maybe?) into the fold would be an incredible thing. I'm all for it.
It would be nice, but it's too high a bar to set, as the visa policies differ significantly between the three.
There is a real danger the Schengen agreement itself will collapse in the upcoming years - Germany is already ignoring both the Schengen agreement and its own courts by keeping border controls.
Step 0: be included in Eurovision
Australia 2015 √
Canada 2027 √
From the Reuters article:
Reuters left out the most interesting part which is to allow service providers to work on either side and four year visas (which include work) in both directions.
This is a positive sign: free-minded, aligned, progressive nations clustering together. Suggested next steps are to form a single market, military, issue common trade currency, move off US dollar, stop trading with the US, thereby restoring sovereignty and enacting your own laws etc.
All, of course, is a ramp to eventually shunning the US: the global bully.
Yes, we can!
So Canada will be able to be in the EU single market but make its own trade rules and agreements then?
Let me fix your chant for you: No, it can't!
EU can't even shun Russia, let alone the US.